Thanksgiving

As my days have devolved into a nearly constant frantic/desperate clawing for the basics of legal knowledge, it's been a breath of fresh suburban air to come home and see family and old friends. Between Law in a Flash cards, I've spent the last couple of nights eating delicious home-cooked Chinese food, cuddling up to my mom, and watching old chick flicks in bed. Then this morning, I had brunch with a couple of friends at Recipes, an old haunt. Laughing and teasing with friends from high school, who now live in all different places and do all sorts of amazing things, I felt proud and a little scared of how much had changed since 2004, along with enormous trepidation at the changes still to come. Each year since graduation, the old group that reconvenes periodically at Recipes or Somerset or Beruit Palace has gotten a little smaller, and I wondered glumly today over strawberry toast if eventually these reunions will stop entirely. But then someone at the table tells a story about a new tattoo or an old boyfriend or chocolate covered bacon, and the resulting sincere reactions--of gasps, smiles, admiration, familiarity, or incredulity--convince me that this lovely moment with old friends will be repeated for years to come.

Res Gestae: Things Done

I joined the Michigan law student newspaper (it is actually as dorky as it sounds.) BUT the upside is, I'm writing again!!!

Check out my first article! :) Don't judge, I haven't written anything but grocery lists for two years.

 http://www.theresgestae.com/2010/10/halloween-special-top-5-michigan-urban-legends.html

On the print version, they put it on the front page. Yeah. That's right. Super impressive. And by 'they,' I really mean 'I.' Since I'm in charge of layout.

:)

Halloween

Rainy Day Musings

I am starting to think that spending years abroad has altered me in ways that I do not find entirely welcome. Very often around my law school peers, I feel like the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

False Assumptions

Ever since I can remember, people (mostly my dad) have been telling me that I am suited for law school because I am "good at reading and writing." After two weeks of orientation and just one day of actual class, I can attest, once and for all, that this is 100% false.

On the contrary, I have found that I am most definitely not suited for law school. More than any skill concerning reading or writing, it seems that alertness is the real key to success. And as I am self-professedly 'Snorlax-like'¹ in nature, I have no idea what to expect in the coming semester.

Me, in my natural state.

¹ From Bulbapedia, the community driven Pokemon Encyclopedia: Snorlax spend the majority of their time sleeping, surviving on their stored fat. It wakes up only to eat and seldom exercises.

Re-Read It

There is nothing like picking up a new book and breathing it in. Literally. On the rare occasion I buy a new book, I will take a long sniff before even cracking the cover. The papery scent holds a hint of what is to come. You should try it sometime; it's very orgasmic, very soul filling. Truly, there is nothing like the promise of a new book.

That said, I haven't started a new book in months--not to mean that I have not been reading. There are a select handful of worn books that I have read one, two, three hundred times.  Books that I turn to when bored, nervous, or content. Books I have read and reread so much and so often that I don't usually bother to begin at the beginning. Sometimes water-stained, sometimes yellowed, sometimes tattered, but always beautiful, these books are dear friends who have inspired me again and again at different stages in life.

Especially now in the face of new challenge, I find myself seeking comfort in old friends. Maniac Magee encourages me to see beyond black and white, The Watsons help me believe in miracles, Guy Montag shows me what's important. Like my best friends, they inspire me to reflect on my own values and remind me that the simplest moments--a trip to Chicago, dinner with a welcoming family, an evening walk--can gain and carry so much meaning through the years.

Transition

Have you ever felt that time is alternately crawling at a snail's pace but in the same breath flying by so quickly you can't seem to make heads or tails of where the days went? As I sit exhausted and cranky, my life haphazardly crammed in a dozen Dole Banana boxes, I find myself wishing I could rewind and replay the last two years in slow motion. I want to go on a ghost tour in Scotland and climb another snow-capped mountain in Lijiang. I want to recapture the feeling of comfort and family in Shanghai, and to repeat the thrill of a city illuminated by 烟花. I want to gossip with my coworkers, drink taro milk tea on the Bund, and spend lazy afternoons shopping with my mother.

Nothing lasts forever--I should know this as well as anyone by now. But Change always has its way of creeping up and startling me. I looked in the mirror this morning and found another freckle. I'm not going anywhere, it seemed to say, I'm here to stay. Tomorrow is the beginning of an odyssey that will change my life, and I am feeling very small indeed.

Things Learned

I have procrastinated blogging for a while (so…procrastinating procrastination). I'm tempted to go with the obligatory post on reverse culture shock, but it's not that interesting; I'll spare the majority of it and just say that my year in China has cultivated in me 1.) a serious paranoia of the government, and 2.) a profound appreciation for American restrooms.

Viva la Formosa!

Next week I'll be in Taiwan eating lychee and stinky tofu until I pop! (Also, I will hopefully be able to find Eddie Peng. And marry him.)

Al & Tipper

This morning while I was eating cabbage for breakfast, I read that Al and Tipper Gore had officially split up. I feel oddly heartbroken over this news; as opposed to other celebrity couples that are so magazine-cover glossy, Al and Tipper always seemed so real. I remember watching their passionate kiss on TV in 2000—as a 14-year-old I was carried away by the romance of it all.

A little better than a fist bump

When couples like Jon&Kate or Heidi&Spencer, or even Brad&Jen break up, it never seems like too big of a deal because the relationships are so public that they seem shallow. As someone who was raised on fairy tales and Disney movies (and cabbage), it’s disheartening to think that two people can be together for 40 years, raise 4 children, and still fall out of love.

I suppose I'll do what I always do when I start doubting love, and turn to strawberry ice cream and The Princess Bride.

"There is a shortage of perfect breasts in the world..."

@BPGlobalPR

                                        From Greenpeace's BP Rebranding Contest

BPGlobalPR: The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct.#bpcares

A few weeks ago, someone started a satiric BP Public Relations account on Twitter to get a few laughs at BP’s expense, as well as to raise money for cleaning up the spill. That’s a win-win in my book!

Other funny tweets:

BPGlobalPR: Oh man, this whole time we've been trying to stop SEAWATER from gushing into our OIL. Stupid Terry was holding the diagram upside down

BPGlobalPR: The ocean looks just a bit slimmer today. Dressing it in black really did the trick!

BPGlobalPR: We just saw a shark fight an octopus inside the geyser. Almost made this whole thing worth it

Employee Benefits

I always got excited hearing about employee benefits—they paint such a rosy picture of corporate life. Google employees have a pool and free haircuts, GM gives out company cars, and even my cousin who works at Boston Consulting Group gets to play Wii at the office. The company I work for mostly sells plastic pellets.

It’s a sore point for me that employees don’t get free bags of plastic pellets.

Because we also make the aspartame they put in Diet Coke, about our only company perk is that we have 200 crates of Diet Coke hoarded in our backroom. So, like everyone else in my office, I drink 3 cans a day, mostly out of boredom, and have an ‘asparterrific’ headache by quitting time.

If Rembrandt drank Diet

How To Be Cool

I found this online and laughed so hard. I think I need to make up my own 'cool list' one of these days...things like "Stop talking to yourself outloud" and "Stop eating Cheetos."

‘Tis the Voice of a Lobster

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here.
~Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I recently watched Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (on bootleg, as one does in China) and while I wasn’t exactly dissatisfied, I did feel a mounting sense of disappointment that peaked at the end when *spoiler* Alice starts up the Opium War.

Alice on the way to introduce English trade to China.

Tim Burton complained in an interview that he was forced to give the movie more plot because Lewis Carroll’s books were comprised of a ‘random disorganized series of events.’ I’m sorry, but condemning ‘Alices Adventures in Wonderland’ for being disorganized is a bit like criticizing the Mad Hatter for being mad—his madness is what makes him wonderful.

I want this tattoo

As a kid, I didn’t like Alice in Wonderland. It baffled me, possibly for the same reason it befuddled Tim Burton. Then, last year at a used bookstore in Munich, I found a battered copy of Lewis’ Alice books and, desperate to read something not written in German, bought it for 5 Euros. I read it on the train back to Leipzig and loved it. I’m sure that part of the reason I liked it so much was simply that it was in English; then again, I also think that I’m one of those people who has gotten more whimsical and ridiculous as I’ve grown older. My imagination is pretty constantly scuttling amok. When I’m not actively daydreaming, I’m creating philanthropic wizardry organizations complete with photoshopped advertisements and carefully composed introductions. Of which I’m sure the Hatter would approve, as it is pretty much the epitome of madness.

Wizards Without Borders

Pictured Above: Founding Members Amadea Potter, Allison Granger, and ‘Con’ Weasley.

Wizards Without Borders is an international magical humanitarian organization working in more than 60 countries to assist Muggles whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or Dementor attack. Wizards and witches volunteer to provide urgent magical care to Muggles in need, assisting with the removal of boggarts, slaying of basilisks, and eviction of Grindylow swarms. Our volunteers all have significant experience in a variety of magical conflicts, from fighting rogue trolls to defeating the Dark Lord.

(WWB also specializes in the breeding and trade of Blast-Ended Skrewts)

WizardsWithoutBorders is currently partnered with ClownsWithoutBorders (http://clownswithoutborders.org/) and JediWithoutBorders (website under construction).

I think I smell a way to pay for law school...

Super-sized Mother Determined to Become World's Fattest Woman
This was an article linked to my iGoogle page the other day. It gets more ridiculous the further you read.

Article highlights:

"Donna, who wears XXXXXXXL dresses, eats mounds of junk food and tries to move as little as possible.”

"'I'd love to be 1,000lb,' she said.'It might be hard though. Running after my daughter keeps my weight down.'"

 “To fund the massive $750 weekly food shop, she runs a website where men pay her to watch her eat fast food."

Lovely.  I wonder if I could start a website where people would pay to watch me eat...;)

Any takers???

Hail to the Victors

Getting into Michigan Law was just SUCH a huge shock for me. It was my pie-in-the-sky dream school, and I thought I had absolutely no shot at all! I’ll never forget the way I felt when my mom handed me the big UPS package after I got home from work and saw the UM seal on the envelope. I honestly think it was one of the happiest moments of my life—which is kind of a sad statement on my life, but still. :D

Now that the initial euphoria is wearing off, I’m getting increasingly concerned about the $160,000 price tag on law school. I keep trying to wrap my mind around how much money that actually is. I could get 128 Macbook Pros (6 if I wanted them gold and diamond encrusted), 106,666 king-sized bars of German chocolate (did someone say my own chocolate waterfall?), and 200 Shar-pei puppies.

It is such a huge amount of money that I can’t wrap my mind around it, and get a headache every time I try! Emory and USC Law are both offering me at least half-tuition scholarships, but who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to U of M. And they know it too, as they haven’t offered me a cent. Sigh. But I recently saw a picture of the Michigan Law reading room:

Maybe $160,000 and 200 Shar-pei puppies is worth getting to pretend to be at Hogwarts.

Tiger Year in China

I think experiencing Chinese New Year in China should be on every one of those "Things you should do before you die" lists. I couldn't sleep for DAYS because of all the fireworks going off; it was Silvester in Leipzig times a bazillion. No one does dangerous illegal fireworks like the Chinese! :)

Here's hoping for a grrrrrr-eat Tiger year! :)

A Chang, By Any Other Name

As Betsy Brown so respectfully observed last year , memorizing and differentiating between Chinese names is, for the average foreigner, slightly more difficult than growing an extra toe. Many Chinese people therefore choose to adopt Western-friendly names when dealing with expatriates. This is sort of like when my preschool teacher would let us call him ‘Mr.Y’ because ‘Yasselski’ was too much for our little minds to handle.

Many Chinese people exasperatedly choose the simplest name they can come up with—“Just call me Bill.” Combined with the relative uniformity of Chinese surnames, this only serves to perpetuate the confusion; for instance, my office has four Bill Chens, three Wendy Wangs, and no way to distinguish between them on paper.

Others seem to put more thought, creativity, and enthusiasm into picking their English names. I can go to lunch with Apple and Teacup, the receptionists, before heading to a meeting with Handsome, Sky, and Twinkle. Sawyer, my cubicle-buddy, named himself after a character on ‘Lost.’

I met a girl at a party who introduced herself as “Foot” because her Chinese name is “Fu Te.”

And a guy named Lebron at a cafe.

In a way, I’m jealous of my coworkers’ opportunity to name themselves. Choosing a name, to me, seems a powerful statement and a serious business. It took me over a month of agonizing before I created my UM uniqname.

I’d like to think that if I had a chance to name myself, I would choose something delightfully ridiculous—Question Chang, Leipzig Chang (People do cities, right?), Rainbow City Sparkle Chang. ‘Connie’ makes me think of an awkwardly overweight housewife in the 1920s. My parents don’t even really like it; they only thought it was a perfect fit because my Grandfather named me ‘Kang-yi' in Chinese--I suppose I should really just consider myself lucky that he didn't choose ‘Fu Te.’

A (New) New Start

In the past few years, I’ve sporadically maintained and discarded multiple Xangas, Livejournals, and Blogspots. The problem is always that after many meandering entries, I inevitably ask myself, But what’s the focus here? Where is this all leading? The problem is, I have no idea. The problem is that I’ve had the concept of PLOT hammered in by seventeen years of English class.


This entry, the first one, is of course exposition. But where is the excitement? I will think impatiently after a few months. It can’t possibly be stuck in rising action forever, I won’t allow it. And so after a few half hearted attempts at a Kiss of Life— forced entries that scream, “HEY look here at how grippingly climactic I am!”—the blog is discarded and added to my growing graveyard of failed online journals.

Then a new blog is born, and I always think that THIS is the one. This one will have climax! climax! climax! and everyone will love reading about my exciting not-at-all-dull life.

(Pictured below: Typically the most exciting moment of my day.)

In the end, of course, I am the only one reading and re-reading my entries, congratulating myself on my own cleverness. To myself, I say: go out and get a life, please. To others: Thank you for enabling my self-indulgence—this time I’m going to try and make it to the peak.