Merry Merry Christmas

Ho Ho Ho!

Merry Christmas!

It's almost been a year since I last updated this. HAHA!

My apologies.. 

Been too busy with school and what not.

Since Feb (my last post), 

A lot has happened. 

I've gone to visit my friend's cottage 

It was an amazing trip!! 

We made snow mans, ate s'mores, roasted marshmallows, played games, 

did a tiny trek to a frozen-over river,

had bible study sessions.

It was definitely worthy of its' own blog post. 

But as usual I was too lazy busy! 

*******

Then I competed in Gymnastics twice 

Won both competitions! 

YAY! 

It was also the 1st time my fam (well, just my sis) ever saw me perform.

After, 

We went n celebrated by having peking duck! 

I got to carve my own duck!! 

*******

Come Summer, my sis n I took Chinese lvl 2

Which brought us all the way to..

CHINA!!

At highest pt of great wall, with fellow classmates n prof!

3 weeks in Shang Hai studying n touring, 

1 week in BeiJing touring.

Was definitely a memorable trip

Made great friends along the way

N absolutely love my prof! 

<3 <3 <3

It's a shame this is all I'm saying about China. 

Cuz it was truly a blessing to be able to do this as an elective course

<3

*******

Instead of flying home to Canada,

I went South,

And landed home sweet home.

Whr I was reunited with my family,

Got to celebrate my gram grams bday! Happy 90th!! <3

my beautiful cousin!

 My Friends, 

And Gymnastics

I performed, I hosted, I loved it!
And this time, my family came n finally saw me perform after  7 years of doing this! <3

All in all, 

I ate, I shopped, 

I got reunited with everyone

<3

*******

Then school started again.

Nothing interesting to report there.

:(

*******

I went Buffalo for a day of shopping!

No pics thr.. 

Well there were.. 

But I can't seem to find them so.. wtv..

Bought mommy a pretty Coach bag

And for myself a pretty Kate Spade wallet 

And lots of other stuff :P

<3

*******
Remember how few months (maybe years) ago 
I wanted to redecorate my house..
Well, I did!
Now we have 2 bedrooms but no living room
Oh well! :P 
N oooo!
We put up Christmas deco!!!
Stay tune for pics!
(I didn't get so made up to not take any pics! C; )
*******

And here we are...

I have gone through everything remotely worth mentioning.

Of course my trip to the cottage, China, Home, n Buffalo has more interesting stories..

But hey,

It's Christmas and I don't want to spend all of it typing ;)

Plus,

Friends are arriving n it's time to get beautiful for my Christmas party.

Cooking a mean steak dinner, with scallop potatoes n salad

Dessert: brownies with ice cream n fresh berries.

Mmm YUM!

Then slumber party and tomorrow,

More SHOPPING!

But before I go..

Just wanna say,

This year has been incredible. 

What I've stated above doesn't do my entire year justice.

I've been blessed, got my prayers answered and felt God's presence with me more than ever.

Last night as I prayed, 

I recapped everything God has given me,

And what He has yet to do in my life,

And all I could think of was reading 

John 3:16

Though I know this verse, God was telling me to have another look

And I realized 1 more thing I haven't given thanks to

Eternal Life & Forgiveness. 

This day 3747647169930 years ago,

 Jesus was born, so I could live.

And for that,

I am more than grateful.

Thank You Lord &,

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY :D

Merry Christmas y'all!

<3

XOXO

-Linnies-

So Long, Farewell, I HOPE to be young Again

Last Friday as I was coaching,

I was explaining how I moved back and forth between Canada and Asia,

And well, the conversation after went something like this:

Student: Your parents aren't here???

Me: Nope

Student: How could they let you come here by yourself??

Me: Why not? Lol.

Student: (shocked out of her wits) CUZ YOU'RE JUST A KID!!!!

Me: LOOOOOL!!! No I'm not!!

*****

But Oh! How I wish I was..

I've come to learn how hard it is to manage all these tiny lil things our parents usually take care of.

1. Cleaning

2. Managing  pest control 

3. Taxes

4. Cooking

Etc, etc, etc, 

With the whole bed bug situation, 

My sis and I have been looking into new places that we wanna move in to.

We've found a few and even gone to a showroom. 

Wow..

Things I've never done before. :P

Look for places, compare prices, compare amenities, compare sq. ft.. 

Blah blah blah BLAH!

Oh man!!!

But anyways,

I have to admit, it was kinda fun though. 

To think of all the possibilities! :D :D 

The parties I could throw, the facilities I would take FULL advantage of! 

But everything comes with a price.

Cause later I found out that we need to pay maintenance fees every month.

Basically, the larger the sq. ft. the more expensive. 

Then!

I found out the amount of money to buy a parking spot can buy me a freakin car.

Yes, parking price = price of a car :D :D   

o.O??

Considering I can't even afford a car, I highly doubt I'll be buying any parking spots..

And on top of all those fees,

I still need to pay property taxes!

:D :D :D 

Really?? No wonder there are so many homeless people! Who can afford all this?

Sigh

But I really do want to move.

This place is too tiny, too congested, too infested.

Ugh. 

:C 

Another annoying adult responsibility all my friends have the privilege of their parents doing for them is,

TAXES.

Sigh!

I got them filled last year by a representative, but this year no such luck.

Need to do it myself. X_X

But tax refunds = sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! <3

Anyhow,

Reading week is about gone and my level of productivity = 10! :D

Out of a scale of... 

34798235718746573248917389434

(which is also the amount of money I need to be able to move!)

:I

<3 XOXO

-Linnies-

Good Night, Sleep Tight,

Don't let the bed bugs bite. :D

They weren't kidding. 

Last Friday, 

As I was getting ready for work I saw this HUGE beetle looking thing crawling next to my pillow,

I instantly ran for some cardboard I wanted to recycle,

Scooped it up and smashed it with an old tissue box against the wall.

First of all,

I would like to note that now I am SOOO way more prepared to deal with insects than I use to

And I don't scream unnecessarily anymore.

But it still doesn't mean I'm not scared of them.

ANYWAYS!

By looking at that bug I could tell there was blood in it (the outer lining looked translucent while the body was reddish brown)  

So, when I smacked it, there was tonnes of blood,

But since it was expected, I wasn't too freaked out.

Anyhow,

I rushed off to work and when I came home, looked it up online,

And yes, found that it was indeed a bed bug.

ugh.. feel so gross postin a pic of this here!

Only thing is the one I saw was like their giant counterpart.

I dunno why it was so huge! 

It was the size of a penny (they usually grow to bout the size of rice bugs)

O.O

So, since it was Fri, I had to wait till Monday to report it.

And by then, my sis was covered in bites! :O

I was lucky, didn't have that many and the ones that I did never swelled.

Until lately. 

They are so *%^*&^($%#@*  itchy!!

Way worst than mosquito bites and last way longer!

Anyways,

They could only come spray them on Thur (yesterday)

But before that, we had to take many precautions and do tonnes of stuff!

We had to wrap up ALL clothes, cloths, and everything soft into plastic bags and wash them in high heat!

So a lot of my clothes have shrunk. 

O.O!

On the plus side, the apartment takes care of it so I don't need to pay a dime for the exterminator.

But on the other side,

I have spent almost $100 on laundry and I'm not even half done yet.

And $150 on dry cleaning. 

So now that my apartment is supposedly bug free,

I still can't remove everything from the bags yet cause they still need to monitor it for 4 weeks

4 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!! 

Every Thursday, they'll come and do a checkup!

Which means for  4 WEEKS I can't put everything back to where it belongs.

Just when I thought my house couldn't look any messier. 

However! The floor will be clean since I need to frequently vacuum.

:D

-_-!

And the cherry on top of all of this-

I had an exam today, which I spent

a good 5 hours studying for.

~~~~~Joy~~~~~

And to top EVERYTHING off with sprinkles!

I have another exam on Monday!! 

And to add whatever else people add,

Through all of this my sis had a sprained ankle and tonnes of assignments so she was a lil more useless than usual.

-Productivity fail-

YEEEAAAAAGHHHHHH!!

X_X

I suppose it is a learning experience though. 

Things I wouldn't learn if I still lived with mommy.

But the next time I see one of those darn things, will be too darn soon. 

<3 XOXO

-Linnies-

Parallel Universe

Being here is like being in a parallel universe..

Well, actually more like perpendicular. 

I mean really.. you can't exactly say Canada or rather, North America is like Asia.

Celebrating CNY here just proves the perpendicularity that much more.

Back at home, 

I usually sit for a 5-7 hour drive (depending on traffic) back to my hometown

  Here, I really have no hometown to go back to. :C

(Or car T^T)

My family has/ have few "traditions"

On the eve of CNY,

We always have steam boat (hot pot)..twice! :D 

Once at mom's side then at dad's side.

Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum YUM!

So, my sis and I tried to keep that tradition.

BUT!! We were both sick and had no mood to travel an hour + by bus to go there.

SO! We went to a mall.. D: and had pasta.

my fail attempt.. or maybe it's just tht she moved.. I'm not blur!

 On CNY day, my mom is crazy superstitious and makes us wear all red! 

2009 CNY, we don't look good but look how red we are! 

 Over the years, it just becomes habitual..

So, I wore red.

Not so perpendicular for this, but oh well.. 

The whole point was to make it parallel anyway...

On new years eve we always wear new jammies!

All smiles

but I actually felt like this..

We always sleep with our red packets under our pillows too,

But being here means we don't get no red packets!! :( 

BOO!

Our house is ALWAYS spotlessly clean,

But it's quite impossible to have a clean house living with my sis so nope! 

Perpendicular!

Another biggy on the perpendicularity is that!

Back home, I get a week off school!

Here, I have the same ol' darn classes..

For a University with such a huge Chinese population, they should REALLY give us at least a day off!

My Chinese class was cancelled though.. :)

During CNY, I meet up with relatives I don't even know and have huge gatherings.

CNY here is quiet, and just the two of us.

sis' attempt

Anyways,

We went to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks (SO CUTE!!)

And besides form being sick, poor, with no other company, 

It was a great day.

But.. seriously!

I can't wait to be back!

I am done living life at a 90 degree angle.

I wanna go homeeeeeeee....

Funny how when I was there, Canada was home, 

And now that I'm here **** is home. 

Sigh..

Guess the grass is always greener on the other side. 

But in a literal sense,

It is greener here! :P

<3 恭喜发才

-Linnies-

My love for.. Writing??

Hey y'all! 
I know my posts bout Disney are long overdue but well!

Choosing to go to Disney meant delaying my essay 

And putting a huge dent in my bank account

Due at the beginning of the school year.
Thus, I was suppose to do it over Winter holidays..but I... 
Didn't.

So I basically spent my whole weekend BS-ing,

And managed to fart out (excuse my language :P) 2418 words! 
(Essay was suppose to be aprox. 2500 words)

MIRACLE.

All in the course of 3 days. 

SO! 

Now that I'm done writing that freakishly long essay,

Lets write some more!!!

:D :D :D 

No.
>:C

This is just a quick lil update! 

My recap of second sem (doesn't look like I'll be doing that anymore), my 4 amazing days at Disney, and progress with gymnastics are gonna have to wait. 

a pic tht incorporates all things I have yet to say? 

Till I can finally breath again then!

<3 XOXO

-Linnies-




side note- Just got off skype with my mom and she said the weirdest thing: "brush your teeth ya!"
Geez, 20 years old, and she's still reminding me to brush my teeth! 
Hehe! <3 u mommy!!

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

BOOM BOOM BOOM

:D

So I know I said I would blog bout my trip at Disney world, 

But I've been so busy ever since I got back that I haven't had the time yet!

:(

Anyhow,

In light of the new year, lets recap on wonderful 2011!

• Finished 1st year at Uni fairly well :D
• Started second year :S
• Learned Sign Language, got to meet some deaf people and communicate with them! <3

my ASL class <3

• Started up my blog :D
• Turned 20!! 
• Put on a ton, loss a bit of the ton (new year resolution to lose weight??)
• Pierced my ear
• Got use to living on my own and being independent
• Got paid pretty decently and spent it all instantly (notice how I rhymed! :P )
• Lost a few loved ones T^T
• Got to meet up with some old friends 

<3

• Some of my prayers were answered <3 (thank You Lord!)
• Got to paint a house!

• Got my knees treated (burned a big hole in my pocket!)

• Went to Wonderland!

one of the few times I met up with Amir!

• Went to the Royal Ontario Museum

• Went to the Science Center

• Went to WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!!!

Stay tuned for the updates on my trip!!

• Last but not the least: I.....joined.... gymnastics... AGAIN! :O :O :O (Will be competing in Jan)

******

That's just but a few things that my tired brain can recall,

Obviously, so much more happened throughout 2011,

Some, I'd like to keep to myself,

Others probably not big enough a deal to really share.

Anyhow,

I wanna thank God for blessing me the way He has so far.

I've lived 2 decades now (can you believe it!! :O I can't!!)

And when I look back on these 2 decades - I always smile (ok, so maybe just certain events)

I've learned so much from the pain and gotten so much from the good.

Thank you wonderful friends and family who have filled my life with so much love!

Muacks muacks!! <3

Lets just pray that the next 2 decades and the rest of my life is just as freakin' or even more awesome! :P

XOXO <3

-Linnies-

Au Revoir!

Guys, the next time u read this,

It'll be about my fantastic (hopefully) trip to Disney!

Till then I'm gonna be MIA from the internet AND FB! :O 

Haha!! 

Didn't sleep the whole night so lets see how awesome this day goes!

Ciao my darlins'!

<3 XOXO

-Linnies-