Otters kind of sound like birds chirping. Who would’ve guessed?
otters chirping from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Hey, when you go to a zoo, sometimes you’ll find the animals doing their business wherever it happens to be convenient. Like this otter that was pooing…
otter pooing from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
And of course, why you really go to a zoo… to watch the animals moving around, having some fun and doing what pleases them.
otter swimming from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
The first half of last week, my morning commute was a whopping 2 and a half hours in the morning. Going home was much better at around 1 hour and 45 minutes, but still – over 4 hours a day just to get to and from work? Factor in the 9 hours spent at work and I barely have enough time to get ready in the morning, eat dinner at night, rest, get ready for bed, and sleep in the remaining time. Plus it’s been drizzly and cold, which makes things all the more miserable.
The sudden spike in commute time (it used to take me an hour and a half or so) is due to added construction along the 405, particularly in the Sepulveda Pass. They’re shutting down Sepulveda going through the mountains, which means everyone is forced to use the 405 and congest even more than usual. It’s absolute insanity and I’m getting really tired from all the driving. I’m thinking of renting a place nearby just to alleviate the stresses of driving so much and give myself more time to rest at night.
At least now I have the SafeCell App on my phone so I can earn points for not using my phone while driving! Once I save up enough I can redeem them for items at hundreds of retailers. It’ll make my commute much more rewarding as I focus on driving safely and imagine as my points rack up. 🙂 Now if only I could find a good radio station to listen to… I’m so sick of all the music they cycle through and the boring talk shows that just repeat themselves. I’m even sick of the commercials I’ve heard time and time again! I tried audiobooks, but haven’t found any good ones since I listened to the ones I really wanted to hear. Panda suggested podcasts, so maybe I’ll look into those.
Use some food and be patient! Look at how many gathered ’round…
hungry birds from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Just keep on tempting them. Someone’s gotta give.
bird feeding from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Valencia, which has been branding itself “Awesometown,” had their first food truck event tonight, inviting a handful of the trucks to the parking lot at Bridgeport Marketplace. It was a smashing success and too good for its own good, with waaay more people showing up than anticipated. Panda and I spent an hour and an hour and a half each at the Fresh Fries and Border Grill Trucks, respectively. It was absolute insanity and I know next year it’s going to be a lot more spread out.
This way to YUM! They also had signs that said GRUB, lol.
A LOT of people showed up - far more than they expected! There were two aisles like this with food truck lining either end and a mess of lines crowding up the area.
This was where I started in the line for Border Grill. It took me an hour and a half to get to the front, order, and get my food. CRAZINESS.
Katana and her fiance came to visit last month and during a drive it came up in conversation that he likes Scions. She and I were both appalled by this lack of taste and it got me thinking – why do boxy cars look so ugly to us? When he first mentioned this opinion, we both exclaimed that they look like shoe boxes, so angular and awkward. And that I think is the key. You see, when have you ever heard of a designer shoe box? They just don’t make them. They make designer shoes and designer containers of various sorts (think perfume/alcohol bottles, branded packaging, etc.), but they do not make designer shoe boxes.
Now, since Scions look like shoe boxes, it goes to reason that they are not very fashionable either. See? My logic is infallible. So it’s my conclusion that Scions aren’t appreciated for similar reasons that shoe boxes aren’t: they do the job, but not all that gracefully and they aren’t aesthetically pleasing. Practical, simple, but certainly not the most desirable. Wouldn’t you agree?
I had a Groupon awhile ago that included this ionic footbath. I was just interested in the jade stone massage, but since it came in a package I used the service and it was very interesting. Whether or not it does what it claims, something turned the water orange and made my feet tingle! My joints would need detoxing.
The water slowly turned orange in my ionic footbath.
Apparently orange means I was detoxing from the joints.
It was quite the day at work today as people were let go and we learned more of the restructuring and changes to come. There’s a lot of potential for growth in the coming weeks and months as we transition to a new version of this company. I’m glad to see that things will be picking up momentum, but for now I’m too tired to really write much. It was a long, busy day! My head started to feel foggy late in the afternoon and I’m glad to have the weekend to recuperate so I can go back on Monday with a fresh mind.
Things seem to move really fast in this industry! In the months I’ve been around, there have been seven changes between hiring and people leaving. And with many of the affiliates I deal with, my contacts have changed. I think it’s good to keep things fresh, but I hope to stay with this job for at least a couple of years. We’ll go with the flow and see where things develop, but I can definitely see myself still here this time next year.
Gives a whole new meaning to lemon-lime… my lime turned “lemon” due to the hot soup!
Comfortable enough in America, Chinatown, and even Hong Kong or Taiwan, we seem to belong everywhere. And because of this, we might also belong nowhere. “Home,” it seems, ends up being a mixed-up notion that must be redefined if it is to have meaning for many of us.
~Phoebe Eng, Warrior Lessons
When I was in Chinese school in New York, author Phoebe Eng came by for a book signing at my school. My parents bought me her book, Warrior Lessons, while I was in class and had her sign it for me. When I received the book, I read through it to learn more about the Asian-American woman’s experience. I remember reading through it every couple of years since then, and now it’s time to read it again. She speaks of a variety of experiences by Asian-American women from around the country, much of which we can relate to.
The quote above is particularly pertinent to my life. Not only did I grow up between the US and China, I also moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and ended up on the West Coast. I can fit in and live comfortably just about anywhere, yet not belong anywhere. It’s the story of my life. And so, whenever people ask me where I’m from, my answer varies each time.
Where am I from? A little bit of everywhere, I’d sometimes reply, then explain the moves I’ve made. When I’m not in the mood to delve too deeply, I’ll just simply say the current place I am living. In China, I’m from America. In America, I’m from Asia. In Europe, I choose. This can sometimes be beneficial and I can choose sides as needed, but of course much of the time I just end up being an outsider. But I’ve never really had a problem with that. In fact, I quite enjoying being “the other” – Eastern to the Westerners, Western to the Easterners, and just plain foreign to foreign countrymen.
The idea of home is also distorted by my multiple moves, which leaves me with no single hometown, no single childhood home, and no single concept of home. Home is sometimes a house, or a town, or wherever my parents are. Home is sometimes where I have been living as of late and home is sometimes the place I am currently most fond of staying at. In a broad sense, home is the United States, where I am most comfortable culturally and linguistically. Yet in a deeper sense, home is China, where my roots are and all of my family still resides. As I like to tell people, it’s complicated. That’s ok though, I don’t mind!
I am perfectly content going to a foreign country like Hong Kong and having people speak to me in Cantonese, assuming I would understand (unfortunately, I only know Mandarin). I am also very happy to be able to hop between my two countries of origin without any major language barriers. And while my notion of home changes almost as much as my physical addresses have changed, I understand that the way we see life and our lives will change over time. So what’s so wrong about having a fluid definition of what makes a home?
