am i ready for IT?

so i was mentioning about Match.com the other day to a friend of mine..joking about how i'm going to sign up RIGHT THIS YEAR (out of frustration of course).

And so yesterday i tried to start a free profile, and yet i couldn't finish it. the same ideas kept running through my head: am i ready to commit to this online dating stuff?

I mean it's worked before, for a lot of people, so why am i so hesitant about taking this big step (and is it a big step at all)? i mean the lifestyle i'm leading does look like it can use a little online dating services, i'm either at school or at work, surrounded by 90% females, and when i go out i hardly meet anyone who's eligible and who i'd like to know better. maybe Match isn't such a bad idea, since you can come across someone who has similar interests who you just never cross paths with. Very rational.

But why can't i finish writing my profile? what is holding me back? there's some time left but not THAT much time left. i should already want to do this thing to increase my chances, what's the worst that can happen?

well, i guess to me it means a lot more than just casually meeting people. It also means the end of my hopeful phase that something might happen natually without human force intervened. I kept hoping that one day, by some weird occurence, i would bump into/pick up the same merchandise/flirt shamelessly with a stranger who will eventually become my significant other, and make a good wedding story out of it. I am just not sure if saying "we met on matchher/eharmony/yahoo personal" will do it for me. of course it can be romantic, i mean out of millions of users online we click with each other, that IS kind of romantic. but like i said, i tend to like to think that internet is reserved for those who really just sit at home hoping that someone online will become his/her soulmate all the while disengage him/herself from the real world. but i guess i'm becomgin the butt of my own joke this time.

same reason why i preferred not to be set up.

Turning 25 (a time capsule post)

This is the first post i'm writing on turning 25 (which happened yesterday--6/7).

It was a good day, and very mellow too. I gathered about 8 close friends, to eat out at a nice sushi restaurant in Santa Monica (Sushi Roku--wayy over priced, and cost us a fortune--sorry girls!) follow by some drinking and game watching at Yankee Doodle (a sports bar).

I am extremely grateful for those who came out. I was happy that i was able to spend this special day with my very close friends, all sitting at one table, together for my birthday. There were some who weren't able to make it, but I was content. What more can a single gal ask for?

It is true that while sometimes i tend to look at the downside of things, such as not having gone on a date for a VERY long time and not meeting quality individuals with whom i may have a future with, but really i think it is truely a blessing to be surrounded by friends who have been with you thick and thin, who you can be the ugliest, most disgusting self with. When i counted the years i've known these people, some since high school , some college and some i have only gotten to know very well in graduate school, in ever stage of my life i was blessed enough to have these people hold my hands through the single days. I have always been single, but in a way i have never been truely lonely. and i've always felt the support of my family as well, even though i haven't spent another birthday with them since i left the country.

Last year at this time i was in Rome, at a bar with the rest of my tour group. It was the last day before i left my grand tour of europe, and i was hanging with these awesome people from all over the US whom i would otherwise have never met if not this tour. people were buying me drinks and i loved the french martini my roommate from florida recommended. One of the last things i saw before I called it a nigh in Rome was the Trivoli Fountain. that was probably one of the most amazing things i have seen in my life so far. i was taken aback by how breathtakingly beautiful it was. and like everyone else, i tossed two coins behind my back into the fountain. one for good luck and one for a promised return to Rome. which i don't know when THAT will be. but hopefully very soon.

When i look back on my life so far, i feel that there's some very amazing times and some very bad times. I realize that i tend to let the feeling of misery take over whatever else that is good in my life. Yes being lonely sucks, and it makes you a little desperate at time, especially when the whole world seems to be dating and in love. you wonder what is so wrong about you that nobody likes, and you start inspecting your life choices because you wonder if you're simply too 'uptight' to meet someone worthwhile, or you doubt your own attractiveness. and when all else fails, you simply give up on the notion that you will EVER meet your prince charming and be married. you life seems to end at 25. and you doubt that the next 5 years will be any better. if anything, probably worse.

But it hasnt been all that bad. There's been a million things i've done that i'm proud of. even if they are stupid funny choices. i dont regret the crushes i've had because they made my life my interesting, even if they were unrequited love. I've travelled and had a great time everytime i went somewhere, even if i 1)couldn't speak the language well/at all; or 2) lose my belongings on the way; or 3) was scared like hell because of safety reasons; or 4)never met foreign boyfriends like the others did. but i still got a kick out of every experience. i wouldn't be able to choose if i have to decide on a city to live in ..i would have to rotate and take me another 25 years!

i've become such a different person too. 10 years ago i was making one of the most major decisions of my life moving to the US. I came here looking and dressing like a dork and was basically thrown into the real world. i think i can now finally call myself mature/sophisticated/cosmopolitan which i would have never been able to imagine myself before. I have had to learn to defend myself in many ways but i have, and i think i am doing it in a way that is tolerable within my nature. I am never bitchy, just defensive, and you need a lot of that to survive in the real world, without people walking all over you. But i have become a tough person. I've also become more confident in the knowledge i have about my studies. I am still not great at what i do, and i certainly still have doubts about the future. but i've walked a long distance to get to where i am today, and i am not quitting before i get that degree. i just need to believe that i can achieve it.

I've also become a lot more comfortable with my body and who I am. there were times when i was extremely self-concious about what i was because i was surrounded by beautiful people, always, and i saw no point in becoming anything better. but i've learned to appreciate who I am. and i've learned to dress better, to look better, to CARE and respect what i was born with. i'm not perfect, but i can be happy with what i have. i never used to wear skirts or swimsuits before. and i never cared about the food i ate and exercise. but i'm taking really good care of my body now for health and aesthetic reasons and I am glad to say that i'm finally a woman i'd like to be.

i've loved, and i've lost. and i've been crazy and i've been good. i've been quirky and i've been rational. i want to move on with my life and see what's in store for me in the next 10 years. will i have a job i enjoy? will be in the US or somewhere else? will I still be close to the friends i have? will I be a single career woman who flies all over the world to meet with clients? will i be married?

well, i may never have all of the above, but i really just want to be HAPPY. and that, is really the hardest thing to ask for. and i'm crossing my fingers.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

MY 24 hr non-stop dancing encounter (3)

so here's the real interesting part:

after we went upstairs, it went something like this:
this dancer from nowhere started dancing for us, and he said WITH A REALL BAD ACCENT:

HELLO, MY NAME IS BLAH-BLAH. I'M FROM ITALY. MY ENGLISH IS NO GOOD, BUT I SURE KNOW HOW TO MAKE A GIRL FEEL GOOD.

at which point i was sure i was going to laugh hysterically in my head due to its corniness. then he danced a little for us. later my cousin's friend D found the guy she had the hots for, and said we could just share this private dance. so we were led to this darkly lit couch area, and before i knew it, another guy grabbed me and wanted to do a dance for me. this guy i actually recognize from before because when we came in the first time, he started talking to cousin B almost immediately, pointing at me as if telling her to buy one for me. but Cousin B was too embarrassed from this other dancer's dance that she didn't bother. and then he came a few times after that saying he could do one for me or my friends. but i turned him down as well. so anyway, he started his dance. and i realy just thought the whole thing was funny and didn't think much into it.

I think i must have acted pretty embarrassed/reserved, so he didn't try to do the REALLY raunchy stuff on me (or else i might have died of humiliation), he just kinda danced for me, and kept touching my hair and my face saying how he thinks i'm beautiful (what a line). he danced for me for the longest time, and i was actually starting to feel bad for him because i must have looked like a deadfish or soemthing. too bad i'm not turned on like his other customers, but dirty dancing was just funny to me not THAT sexy. at one point i actually wanted to tell him it's okay and stop trying because i felt really bad for him. he must have used up all his lines. so there was actualy this awkward silence during hte dance..and i was such a dork that i started trying to have a conversation with him (which was laughed at by my sister later for my stupidity). when he was done dancing we went back to friend D's booth and she was still enjoying it a lot..so we had to wait for her (another awkwardness) because my purse was behind her head..-_- *. but Christopher the Polish guy was nice enough that he was just hugging me so we didn't look like idiots intruding. (it must have been the most G-rated $20 he's ever earned because it was just sooooo soooo non LD like. :/.....)he came by to say hi later, and gave me a big hug before we left the club the last time.

afterthoughts:

i think i partly wanted to get the dance, because i feel i'm sooooo old now and sooo single. everyone keeps saying that you're young and you still have many years ahead of you, and you're cute blah blah blah, and they are in disbelief when i tell them i've been single for 7-8 years now. i mean, almost EVERYONE is seeing someone nowadays, i feel like a freak. i'm even starting to doubt how attractive i really am. if what everyone says is true, how can i be the only one undesirable by guys? also i partly want to just erase all bad memories from before, from this year, from that really sad sad relationship i had centuries ago, from school and the horrible people, from work and my boss bitchy as hell, from all the single valentine days/xmas/new year's eve, from the all the days i walk the empty street by myself, from all the battles i've had to fight career wise without someone romantic to turn to at the end of the day. i could see all these flashbacks that i've had thusfar in life and i though WHAT THE HECK. it doesn't hurt to have someone whisper to you and shower you with compliments, and do something wild just for day. next time i touch anyone who's male might be a middle aged, beer belly, financially stable prick who i am set up with by my relatives/married friends who just feel bad for me. i may never know what six packs feel like. so i'm gonna do it. and feel good about it.

but then of course, when i really think about it, i still can't shake off the feeling that i had to PAY for some hot guy to be that affectionate to me. i'm sure he was saying all these lines that he's used on all his other customers and they worked like gold, and to someone like me believing that they were true was just a little sad. he does this everyday, it IS a job for him. i need to stop thinking a male revue dancer is hot because that is jsut one category that i shouldn't think about at all. and plus, i really can't remember his face because his face was away from the light so i only really saw this silhouette of a hot guy. except that he had really shiney, pin straight shoulder length hair. and i thought THAT was interesting ( i have weird tastes).

but yeah, it was a quite liberating experience. i think i would take a LD over anything in a heartbeat. ;)

my 24 hr non-stop dancing encounter (2)

So here is the REAL fun part of the night:

OG is the kinda club where people actually take it almost all off, if you know what I mean, so it's actually a non-stop dancing kinda bar. ;) the first floor is for guys, so you walk in to see a bunch of naked girls on stage working it, and there are these others giving guys LD's (something dance...i dont want to spell it out for my parents to get a heart attack). i was already in awe when i saw that. but we want to go UPSTAIRS, where the GUYS are. and then that was the most incredible sight of my WHOLE life thusfar. you see a TON of naked, hot like steel bodies, perfect brad-pitt butts, in THONGS. and i mean THONGS. and they would come around you and ask if you would like a dance personally, or buy one for your friend. so of course, we all bought a lot of cousin B, and she was embarrassed like HELL. it was so hilarious to see her like that, because she certainly was more disgusted than enjoyed ;)....and then her friends started buying for each other, so all the laugher's because laughees. it was just so funny when people are forced by the guys to touch their bods and bend in these unspeakable positions.

Just as i was laughing at these girls, i think someone from the group bought one for my sister and I. dont worry, it was nothing as raunchy because i think cousin B would freak out if it were, and we were just too embarrassed to act like we were enjoying the touchin and the dangling of certain body part. the guy who danced for us was this little asian guy, and he was being very courteous so itwasn't as traumatizing as i thought it would be.

We went downstairs after some time and started watching the girls, the girls were okay, no one too gorgeous. So i started losing focus. i was really expecting some big breasted blond girls really working it. but then around me i was pretty disturbed by the LDcer's and their customers. for some reason i just think guys touching girls are so much worse than girls touching guys....it was just gross seeing how much the guys were enjoying the dance. :P so one of cousin B's friend convinced me to go back upstairs and get a private LD (she got one earlier that night)...and i was thinking what the heck, i'm turning 25 in seven days and i may NEVER have my own bachelorette, and everyones there so nothing could possibly happen, so i went back upstairs.

AND THE STORY CONTINUES....

24 non-stop dancing first encounter (1)

So my cousin B is getting married this summer, and i was invited to her bachelorette party which took place the day after i came back from tw. My sis and I left a day early for vegas so we wouldn't be too tired all day saturday partying with the girls.

So we checked into Monte Carlo on friday, to our surprise, they actually upgraded us to the DIAMOND SUITE because all their regular rooms were full! and i only bought the room 2 days before our departure! however the initial pleasantness was quickly followed by inevitable sadness. because the room was just TOO AWESOME! There was a kitchen with a bar area, a full living room, a separate bedroom with another tv, and a HUGE bath completed with a massaging bathtub! How awesome is that?! so awesome that i feel bad that there were only the two of us, if it was any other girl i'm sure they'd be down at the Bar picking up random hot guys, or if i was on my honeymoon this would have been perfect...but those weren't our situations, so we headed for the BUFFET :P. however, i still happily ended the evening with a nice bubble bath and a can of Sapporo beer which we found in the fridge at a shop downstairs...how i like japanese beers. :)

We woke up at 10 the following day...frantically got ready to leave our fabulous room for Brit's pool party at Treasure Island. Her friend had reserved a Cabana by the pool with food provided by a resaurant. There we met the rest of her friends, and just hung out til about 6pm. It was a ton of fun, since i've never had the pleasure of kicking it in a cabana, there was plenty of food, plenty of drinks, and plenty of fruits and magazines. we just lay our there to get tan, and hit the pool occasionally to cool off.

We met up again at 7pm for some Mexican at Diego:

It was kinda funny because her friends had brought her a TON of bachelorette party stuff that are hilarious. she had the veil, the sash, the penis tatoo and all sorts of penis candies (think dick tarts), i had no idea where to get these stuff!!! so we had some great dinner, and ready to head to our next spot.

We were going to see Thunder from Down Under, which is another male revue show at Excalibur Casino similar to the famous Chippendales. but their box office had already closed by the time we finished dinner. So some girl suggested that we go to OG, which stands for Olympic Garden, and then the REAL part of the story continues.....

Is it better to preserve your dignity or your face?

This is just a question ai raised today at dinner with my younger sister. is it better to preserve your dignity (being true to self) or your face (looking good to others)? the thing is, to look good, meaning in today's society, who you go out with and how many, are such important personal questions that everybody feels they have the right to ask (everybody meaning people OTHER than your close friends and family). and because to say ONE or NONE is such a humiliating matter people go out of their way to claim that they've had multiple, SHORT relationships...and therefore people end up with 11 bf's in a year..and so on.

Personally, I do not think anything shorter than a month SHOULD be considered as 'going out'. DATING, maybe, but definitely not a legitimate relationsihp in which two people feel close enough to form emotionnal attachment to each other, but that's just what I THINK. and i believe, the world doesn't agree with me.

So the thing is, a while ago both me and my younger sis decided to go to a fortune teller in tw just for fun. And the response she got regarding her romantic life was something less optimistic. So it came down on her really hard because she was worried about the lack of chance of ever being married. so today she was telling me about the importance of 'casual dating", and taking things less seriously and just have fun with your life. and of course, i gave her a good, long lecture about that being BS.

and may i add, her change of values was the first thing i expected when i heard her results, because, as someone with less mental maturity would believe, lowering your standard MIGHT actually help with the situation (sense the sarcasm here). so i tried to talk her into some sense, saying that to 'casually date' is to give the a**holes a chance to mess with you. to go out with anyone who isn't what you're looking for jsut because you think you can have more fun in life is just stupid, becuase ultimately guys ahve the better end of the stick. We girls are not getting younger everyday, and yet we are spending just as much time (if not more) on this relationsihp that eventually leads nowhere if you choose to go out with the person in the first place. YES IT'S TRUE that if you keep having standards as if you are looking for your marriage partner, you could be single, for a VERY VERY long time. but to be with someone less sensitive and have the mental maturity of a 5 year old who just wants to get laid because most girls give it up so you should is just friggin retarded. and he will NEVER marry you because no one will ever marry someone who s/he doeesn't respect. but most importantly, if you are stuck with your dumbass boyfriend who abuses you all the time and is such a insecure freak, the nice guys will NEVER comem along because you just have this bad karma/reputation around you, and eventually, the fortuneteller might actually get it right, because you WILL end up single and miserable.

This is not to say that I will be better off, because I am not. i do have somewhat old-school standards for a guy, but nothing impossible. I do believe that if i respect myself enough one day i may or may not find someone who respects me, but at least i wont have regrets about living my life the stupid way. Everytime you break up with someone, a part of you dies, and to go through that multiple times in life and eventually get used to it is just not my idea of growing up. neither do i believe in cheating on people because you've been cheated on, or that if you dont cheat, the other person might cheat on you, anyway.

It's true that i have less fun in life, because during my past experiences abroad, i could have had so much fun hooking up with foreign guys all over europe or whatnot, because people in my study/tour group tend to enjoy that a lot. And yes, the idea is tempting, having a local, french/italian/british bf who shows you around and take to you places otherwise you would never have been by yourself. But is it worth is? i guess that really depends on your moral code. I personally feel that i cannot whore myself in order to have the best times in my life. The best time in my life will happen when i am completely happy with my life and with the person i am completely in love with, but not with a guy who i meet at a bar in Rome telling me how much he likes asian girls.

So yes, although its mortifying to always say that I am STILL single year after year to my friends and relatives in taiwan, but i know i can sleep well at night because i dont have to answer phone calls from abusive bf's, or the girls who i steal their bf's from, and most of all, i save myself a lot of money from not getting STD's.



(and i wonder why i ever tried to make this a happy blog.....there ARE happier things in my life, i swear, i just like to analyze things.) I suppose i can write about the bonfire party i had this past wednesday, which was A LOT of fun, i just never got around to writing it down. :P )

Regarding the earthquake in China, in which 9000 people died:
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/huge-quake-kills-thousands-in-china/20080512061409990001?icid=100214839x1201870178x1200071364#cmntbgn

Reading the comments below, i was surprised at how the general public felt about this event. no one really sent their condolences, and all they could think of was that there won't be lead toys anymore, and that the communists should go to hell, the chinese people deserved it because they stole all the US jobs, GOD is doing this to them to punish them for being unchristian, Free Tibet, ....blah blah blah.

NINE thousand people! i am from tw and i should probably dislike china more than most of these peopl and yet even I FEEL BAD. just like most people in US or Tw who disagree with their idiot leaders, a lot of the impressions people have of a certain country is usually the wrong doing of the politicians and have nothing to do with its people whatsoever. I personally do not believe that these people deserve to die because of whatever reason these ignorant people listed. And PERSONALLY, i don't think any of the issues concerning tibet has any fucking thing to do with most people who sympathize with them., unless you are from Tibet, or you are half a tibetian...whatever. most people in teh us dont give a fuck about tw and have never heard of it and yet politically and econimically tw is many times more like a country than Tibet ever is and ever will be, and i'm sure even taiwanese Red Cross wouldn't think twice about donating to China.

So i felt compelled to leave a comment on the board in response to the comments i read:

wow i'm reading these comments and i cant believe how IGNORANT and DISGUSTING some of these haters are. I don't have the best impression of China and even I FEEL bad about this tragedy. nine thousand people! New york has that 9/11 event and people talk about it for YEARS! and this is many time that magnitude. you people think that every single Chinese person is guilty of the unemployment and toxic toys in the US and every Chinese person is guilty of the violence in China. well THINK AGAIN! people hate americans jsut as much becuase they think we all agree with what Bush does and we are a bunch of brainless jerks. NO WONDER THE REST OF THE WORLD HATES US! apparently the majority of people on this board have no compassion, and can care less about 9000 people dying in this world, think all communists/non christians can go to hell.
well, maybe you people who are unemployed should stop blaming it on other people, GO BACK TO SCHOOL, or jump into that sink hole in Texas!