at home (looking out from the third story window)

darkness sets in like the endless depths of the ocean
once you go too far it isn't a question of going back
It is.

unawareness seeps far beneath where any physicality can be discerned
from which the reflections become lonely as old souls,
lost on their way with only a penpoint of light.

someone else must be there
behind that glass
watching.

me?

could they be thinking
the thoughts of of how the night eat our humanity?
or how it creeps into all crevices kept lighted only with human ingenuity?

eyes like beetles squinting at me as if trying to peer into my insides to reach my soul and tell me of the plaintiveness that exists beneath the splendours of the world.

New Responsibility, but Old Attitudes

Recently, my mother went to Europe for a vacation. It is her first time there and I am really excited for her and wish her all the best. I am left at home for two weeks with only my brother. however, he has the worst attitude towards me. This has been on-going for several onths, off and on. I am always thinking about what I have said or done to affect hm in sucha negative way. how can I be a good sister if I don't acknowledge and understand how and what he is thinking? It is so difficult to deal with him that sometimes I have suicidal thoughts. He says mean things and I feel that I am tricked into getting mad by him. then, he says" See like this, you always get mad. What is having a sister for anyway?" I know I am complaining right now and I should work on my problems and communicate better with him. I should control my temper more and listen to him, which I always do. I give him choices about what to do, but he still ignores me. Maybe it is better that I didn't exist. I care about him, but he has no idea how busy I am. I hope one day he will realize what his impact on others is. Or maybe he does it on purpose to slight me and piss me off. We both think the other is annoying. Maybe I should ignore him, too, since he is going through puberty. I have to take care f the household, though. I need to think of some way to make him trust me again. I'm still hopeful he will change his attitude and become happy again with those around him. I can't stand that we are always arguing, I always apologize, too. Maybe he thinks I'm weak and won't ever stand up to him. then, when I do he uses it against me... there must be something I can do!!!!!!!

If you read this, my brother, don't be offended. it is how I feel at this time and i hope you can accept how I think on certain things. I never meant to attack you or harm you verbally in any way. After all, we both know we get mad over small things. I f we can work on our communication, then lots of problems can be solved. What do you think? We should work together and live happy lives while Mom is enjoying her vacation. don't be so grumpy, it hurts to hear you say such bad things. Remember, I changed you diapers and taught you lots of things when you were a baby. You might htink I have no right to tell you what to do, and you know what? YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! Mom is not here though, so she put me in charge.

Jonathan Played with... DUN DUN DUN

Makeup! My brother was fooling around in my mother's room and found some eyeshadow. He opened up and suddenly his face looked like and Egyptian cat. At least, that's what he said. To me, it all turned out to be my brother being very effeminate. In a good way though, he even talked with a sweeter, higher voice and blinked his gold eyelashes at me. If his voice had already broken, it would have been very entertaining indeed. OK, to be honest, he looked like a ghoul or um, a beggar on the street. He said he wanted to keep it on all night too until the next morning. why does he want to go to school looking like someone who just got beaten up? I told him there was a reason women washed their faces at night to get rid of the makeup: so it wouldn't get over the bedsheets and it's bad for your skin, to some degree. I think Jonathan gets cuter every day, when he's not yelling at me.

Thinking about graduate school

I've been considering some graduate Creative Writing programs. I've found some cool ones and I think I want to go to hawaii or California. I can't stand really hot desert weather or raining every day. I wnat to be in a place where the sun shines and then only some days it rains. I don't know. It's still a little early to be looking. I just want to keep my options open. I'd really like to get into film, too. Maybe I could do one of those dual programs. Like, writing in film or something. they have programs where you can get a Master's in Film and Creative Writing. I think it only takes a year or a year and a half longer. And of course, you have to have um, more kickass qualifications. i keep wondering if I should have backup majors, but then I mean if I realy want to write, I should take Creative Writing. I guess I shouldn't worry too much. Well, I should, because I need to create my samples for my portfolio. >< Sigh.

More trips to go skiing and other vacations Mom planned

Mom loves to plan vacations for us. We went to Kenting for New Year's, then onwards to Japan in February, and then there's this other place that I think is a farm that we're staying at. She says there will be less trips this year, though, since the economy is in a slump. Her company's GM likes to plan activities for his workers when the company has surplus budget. i guess the company is going to be more conservative in the near future. i agree with my mom. I think companies should start at the executive level in making decisions about firing people. There are a lot of ways to make the company more efficient without firing tons of people. One way is to cut benefits and salary of top-earning executives. Some companies do that and enable people would otherwise be jobless to continue earning a living. Those are the ones with integrity. Generally, a lot of executives choose to lay off people because either the company's even higher up people want to or because they want to still live the way they do without having any conscience for the workers involved. that's when strikes happen. I hope more people in Taiwan and in other places realize that they are being cheated out of their rights as workers in the larger companies. Companies should also screen people based on character and ability, not just ability. That way in the long urn there will be less difficulties and other problems.

funny things said over the weekend

Our family uses two types of major languages, English and Mandarin, well ok and some Taiwanese phrases occasionally. We also use some different types of Englishes sometimes. My mom has a bit of short term memory sometimes, so she misuses words. One time over the last weekend, she kept repeating herself but always using the wrong words. I don't have a recording, so I'm not completely sure what she said. I do it too. Sometimes it's like I can't think of a word in Mandarin so I try to say it in English, but it comes out wrong. It happens from English to Mandarin too. My teacher from elementary school once said that was called a brain fart. It sounds childish, but sometimes I tend to believe it myself. then, last year, my literature professor called that slippages in speech. Like, we slip up between the(any)two languages and we sound goofy speaking a different kind of English than the proper English we were taught in school. I think multicultural literature can teach you so much. It's fascinating. As for the things we said, some of them were a bit uh X-rated. Hee hee, if anyone wants to know I can post it later. :)

Mom being Blog-crazed

Lately, my mother has been creating her own blog. she used to have one, but she forgot what her password AND username was. SO, I think she created a new one. She wants a lot of people to read it and then become a writer. See where I get my asprations from? Well, ok I was influenced by my Creative Writing teacher and class in Sophomore year of high school. My mom went around all different kinds of blog sites, Mandarin and English, to see which ones were more popular. She's becoming like a teenager! She stays on the computer for like four to five hours at a time. So do I...word processors are very important in our lives lately. She wants to read mine and my brother's, but I haven't given mine to her yet. Maybe she thinks I have stuff on here that she shouldn't know about. I do have to say though that this blog is just interest only. I'm going to start posting my writing on here during winter break. I'm so excited to start writing stories and poems on here. Can't wait for break to start. The reason I didn't do so earlier is because I didn't find my older stories until recently. I have some interesting things that I wrote. Perhaps my mom will enjoy it, too.

Elva buying Red wine

There was a rumor that Elva wanted to buy red wine because she was heartbroken. Well, this ties into another rumor of Liou Zhen, who is a celebrity dancer. She dances mostly um, things like cha cha, the rumba, waltzing, etc. Yeah. Well anyways, she is supposedly to have stolen Elva's rumored boyfriend. That's why there was need of a bottle of red from the supermarket. this is quite ridiculous if you think about it, though. Why can't she enjoy wine just for herself? Maybe she's inviting friends over or she's having a nice meal with the family (her brother was pictured with her). People speculate too much (including me sometimes) and it can't be helped. At least I'm not the one following her around and taking sneaky pictures of her. the paparazzi don't even count as real journalists. It's such a shame they can do this to people. Oh well, without the paps, they wouldn't be in the news all the time and then they wouldn't be famous. Ha, there's something to think about.

Elva's friends

I read somewhere that she has over 200 people on her msn! I don't have that many. Well that's because half my friends don't have msn or I didn't ask them what it is. Still, I bet that most of them are other celebrities. Plus, how can you talk to them all? Normal people don't even time to spend with their families. She has a number of very close friends too. One of them is filming this show about a 30-something women who falls in love with a 20-something guy who at the beginning doesn't seem to have anything to his name, so she rejects him. I've never seen it before, though. This is according to a commercial I saw at home. anyways, I saw a few videos of Elva on YouTube yesterday, it was hilarious. It's this cooking show, which I'll find later to post on here. The hosts are sisters. Well, really famous for show-hosting. :)

Elva at concerts

Elva has been seen attending a lot of concerts lately. First one I remember is Avril Lavigne, and more recently is Guo Fu Chen. Ok, I'll look up the Mandarin words later. I want to see his concer t too! There's supposed to be a pool and he gets wet, along with some of the audience. Lots of big stars attended his two concerts.