Happy Chinese New Year!

Yay! The first day of Chinese New Year. This is the year of the dragon, which is probably the most auspicious year for the Chinese, since we Chinese are the descendants of the dragon.

Every year during this time I miss my family terribly. It's supposed to be a time for family gathering and I miss out on that every year ever since I moved to the U.S. Sigh. But next year I am pretty sure we will be home for Chinese New Year. Mr.L will be done with school and we might just fly back to Malaysia and live there for a few months...or years.

I just love all the superstitious stuff my family does for CNY. Every year nobody sweeps the floor during CNY, it is believed that you will sweep the fortune out the door. Then, we light the crazy loud fire crackers at midnight (every household does) and let the wrappings fall on the ground for the rest of the festival. CNY lasts for 15 days and we can visit friends and family for 15 solid days if we want to. The best thing about that is not only do we get to eat, drink, and be merry, we get MONEY for visiting them! Well, that is if we're still single. Once you're married, you lose that privilege to "earn" money. When I was small, I would always get a few hundred, sometimes up to a thousand ringgit. That's like college fund.

My least favorite time of CNY was when I was awaken early in the morning by my aunt's loud speaker. She would be playing CNY songs really really loudly (you can hear it a few doors down). That was her favorite thing to do. She saw it as her mission to irritate us out of bed so we would get out butt downstairs and eat the breakfast my grandma prepared. My grandma always cooked chicken soup with shiitake mushrooms and long life noodles. I love that tradition so much because grandma always put lots of red rice wine in the soup so it smelled super good. My cousins and I would always slurp the long noodles because we were not supposed to cut the noodles short so we could live a long and prosperous life.

My favorite part of CNY is watching the lion dance. The lion symbolized the monster called "Nian", which came to the Chinese village thousands of years ago to terrorize the Chinese people. The people were terrified of it at first but they found out about the weakness of "Nian". It was afraid of red color and loud noises. Therefore, the people painted their houses red and bang on gongs and plates and threw loud firecrackers at it to chase it away. The lion dance pretty much depicts that story but nowadays it is an auspicious thing to invite the lion to your house, and have it kowtow to you and your house. This means that good things will happen to your family.

Oh man, the more I talk about it the more I miss my family and CNY! I wish I could convey the feeling that I have for this special celebration adequately. But words are always not enough. I am so proud of my Chinese heritage.

Here's a video of the lion dance. Fast forwward to minute 1:40

Last post of the year! The review of 2011.

2011 was a year of fun, learning, and growth. In retrospect, it was a wonderful year for us.

January: My sister came to visit and slept on our couch for about a month! We had so much fun while she was here. She celebrated her 24th birthday here too. My second semester in grad school started and this semester I got to co-teach a class with my mentor. It was the most nerve-racking experience ever!

sis's 24th birthday at a Japanese reataurant

February: Chinese New Year celebration with hubby at a Chinese hotpot restaurant. We call it "steamboat" in Malaysia. I was so happy to have found this restaurant. I loved the food! Also, because it is so expensive, it inspired me to buy my own portable electrical stove to make our own steamboat at home.

March: My 10-week teaching practicum came to an end. That was when I thought I was ready to be a full-on real teacher. Read about it here.

April: We celebrated our 2nd anniversary in Park City. Wow, two years! Mr.L celebrated his 25th! I threw a surprise party for him. The winter semester finally came to an end and I got all A's in my classes. Yay!

Vietnamese pho for our 2nd anniversary

May: We took a red-eye flight, traveled for more than 30 hours to get back to my home land. I was beyond ecstatic. It was the beginning of our three-month vacation. We visited Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia and an overrated city. We traveled to the historical city of Malacca. This was where Malaysia started. We also took a trip to Phuket, Thailand, where we did so many fun things and got food poisoning there.

Kuala Lumpur: Batu Caves

On a trishaw in the historic city of Malacca

Feeding our dead skin to the little fishies

Holding a gibbon baby at the floating houses in Phuket

June: Apart from spending a lot of quality time with my mom, we visited my cousins and stayed with them for a couple of weeks both in Sibu and Kuching. Then, we flew off to Singapore (another overrated city), and Bali Indonesia. Bali is a very unique place and I just love love love all the temples. A few things I DISLIKE about Bali are the constant pestering from the local hawkers everywhere we went, having to pay the airport security for leaving their country, and lastly, the constant smell of smoke and incense that they light everywhere on the road.

Merlion in Singapore 

Having a sunset dinner on the beach in Bali

July: We visited my dad and my friends in Kota Kinabalu (love this place to death!) and went on a scary island hopping spree (imagine white water rafting in the ocean where the water rose as high as a few stories tall). Then we spent our last few days in Asia in Taiwan where I got sunburned.

This is why I love Taiwan. 

A cool place called JiuFen in North Taipei

August: Came home to good ol' Utah. Mr.L's two siblings got married to their lovers. We traveled up and down Utah quite a bit this month too. Then, Mr.L's youngest brother entered the Missionary Training Center and we got to take him out to lunch and drop him off at the MTC curb. It was a crazy month!

Chantelle and Tyler's wedding

Tyler and Jordyn's wedding 

September: School started and I started on my MA project to make a dictionary. Very uneventful month.

October: I had a meltdown because I hated teaching my class! I also thought that I would not be able to finish my 3 papers ever. When Halloween came around I decided I would go wild.

sugar skull grim reaper

                               

November: More work and school. Then the Lord had mercy on me and gave me a Thanksgiving break that I absolutely needed. We went to Las Vegas and had a great dinner with my cousins at New York New York hotel. A week later, I celebrated my 26th birthday. Mr.L threw me a surprise party and I had absolutely no idea! It was the best birthday ever!

Thanksgiving in Las Vegas

My surprise birthday party. All of my good friends came. So fun!

December: Finals were over! The most horrible semester is finally behind me! We celebrated a great Christmas with Mr.L's mom and siblings. I enjoyed the slow-paced Christmas break when I could just be lazy and wake up whenever I wanted. Today we are celebrating the last day of the great 2011 and counting down to another great year. May 2012 be fabulous to everyone!

Story #358: Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! I had a great time in Las Vegas with my cousins and their families. One of my cousins and her daughter flew in from Malaysia and they drove to Las Vegas with my other cousin and her family. It was so great to see them and get caught up on each other's life. This was the first time I celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family so it's pretty great. I also went on my first Black Friday sale. After our dinner at New York New York America restaurant, we took a stroll down the strip to look at some casinos and take pictures there. Then, just before midnight we went to the factory outlet mall to begin our 3 hour shopping. I got a pair of leather boots that I have wanted to get for quite some times for half off the original price. Score! Other than that, I seriously don't see the appeal of going shopping when you're sleepy and having to fight your way through the human traffic. I also felt like I was in China or the Philippines since I heard so much Mandarin being spoken and saw so many Filipinos there. In short, I'd rather go shopping when I am fully rested and was not hungry and cranky.

Now I can't wait for Christmas!!

Story #357: LIFE

My goal to write a new post once a week is obviously not going to be reached. So I will just give you guys a quick update of what's up and what's new in our lives.

1. Life is busy, busy, busy for both Mr.L and me. Apart from going to school full-time (Mon to Thurs), we have a ton of homework to do for all of our classes. Work is also very demanding of our time, especially Mr.L's job (he's working really hard for his clients, on his own business website, and part time for Family Search). I am busy with lesson planning, teaching, grading, and meeting with students. I like my job but I think it is taking way too much attention and time that I'd rather spend on my MA Project.

Speaking of my job, it is getting a lot easier comparing to the beginning of the semester. I am getting to know my students better and built a good rapport in the class. I wish I could put more effort into teaching my students, but I feel like all of us are losing the motivation as the end of semester is drawing closer. There were some bad days when I just felt like quitting and say to my students "to hell with you!" But I never lose my patience with my students, which is kinda weird, cause they are not exactly my favorite people in the world, and MAN! do they complain about the homework I assigned them. Seriously, it's not bad at all. They should try doing my assignment! Anyways, I was counting the days til I am done with teaching for the semester. 14 more school days! I cannot wait!

2. My MA Project is coming along quite smoothly. I have compiled 10 sample dictionary entries ready to be pilot-tested. I am developing a survey to go along with the test. Also, Mr.L is helping me with building the dictionary website (which is the most important part of the test). Hopefully, I can get everything ready this week and send out the surveys to people. After all the compiling and pilot-testing, I will be able to work on the write-up, which I am pretty sure is going to be my biggest nightmare towards the end of the semester. This is seriously my toughest semester ever, hands down.

On top of my MA project, I have two other class projects that I have to do. I used to be able to write 5 major research papers (10-15 pages) for 5 different classes in one semester in my undergrad program, but for some reasons, writing two 15-pages long research papers seem so daunting now. I wonder if age has something to do with it!

3. We're trying to squeeze in a little bit of fun every weekend because, let's face it, life without fun is not worth living. I am happy to say that our weekends have been great so far. We went on drives in the canyon to watch the beautiful Fall leaves, went and did our first session at the Salt Lake temple on a snowy day, and went and watched Disney On Ice.

4. I've been going to bed before 10pm more and more frequently. Can you tell that life has taken its toll on me? I haven't been going to bed before 12am in the past few years (ever since I started college)! But I guess it's a good thing going to bed early. That means I get more sleep, and I'll be more rested, and be less cranky during the day, and be more productive. A blessing in disguise? Most likely.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I am excited about it. This year I am thankful for all the work that the Lord has blessed us with. K, this is probably a little bit too depressing but at one point when I felt like I was drowning in all the assignments, I wished for the world to end soon. I am thankful that the Lord did not listen to my stupid, whiny wish. Even though I am always complaining about how busy I am and how much I wish everything could be over, I am actually very thankful for a busy life. At least I am not bored! I feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence everytime I finish a seemingly way-too-difficult-for-Sharon task. I proved to myself that I could find a way to get things done if I had a will.

Story #356: It's him again!

Today was laundry day again. Remember that little boy we saw last time? If you don't, go here to read about him. Anyways, we saw him again! He was coming from an opposite direction this time. He was wearing a kid's size police uniform. I tried talking to him, but he ignored me. All I can say is his mom taught him well. When we were in the laundry room, I realized I forgot to bring my BYU ID card so I ran back to our apartment to get it. Yeap, I ran, cause it was freezing outside. I almost rolled down the stairs. That's the story for another day. As I was running back to the laundry room, I heard someone blowing a whistle. I knew, by my instinct, that it was that little boy blowing his whistle on me. I didn't turn back to look cause I just wanted to get the laundry done. As I was running, I heard running footsteps behind me and the whistle kept being blown. I was secretly happy that I outran him. When I got into the laundry room, I told Mr.L that the little boy was chasing after me. Sure enough, he ran in, blowing his whistle. 

I am starting to like going to the laundry mat now. It seemed that there were always fun little incident like that every time we went. 

Story #356: Meltdown

Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, I had a few meltdowns. I don't know what was causing me to be so anger-proned but I was not my best self the past few days. I was tired and stressed-out. I was helping out at my friend's activity (for her MA project) at the ELC. I was there from 4pm til about 9pm (even though I was paid by the ELC, I was only paid for 2 hours of my work). Though I had fun helping out (I was doing some background/body swap editing on PhotoShop), I felt so tired. I talked to my friend after the activity and she told me this was one of the last things she had to do for her project.

 I was SCARED when I heard that. My goal is to graduate in June and that means I need to get my project done by February so I can defend in April, and then finish my coursework in June and graduate. I was overcome with a feeling of inadequacy (I think grad school make people feel that way all the time) and fear that I will not be able to my project done in time. Curse my professor for telling me to wait til Fall to start (he wouldn't answer my questions when I emailed him from Malaysia in the summer. He told me that I will know what I need to do when I take his classes in Fall)! Fall is here and I was finally able to get my questions answered (those questions I asked him in the emails were yes/no question. He only needed to tell me yes or no and then I would have been able to carry out my project while vacationing in Asia). WHY would he have waited for months to tell me what I needed to hear? Sometimes I REALLY REALLY want to freaking curse him!!

I think that one of the reasons I was suddenly overwhelmed and stressed-out was that I put all the deadlines of all the research papers (yea, on top of my MA project, I still have 2 other papers to do, and a ton of stuff to grade for my students) and assignments on google calendar and when I saw that there are A LOT of things due in the next couple of months (something is due every week), I panicked. Then I saw how messy my apartment was, I freaked out. A thought crossed my mind: I want to quit school. I am DONE with school!

That was what I wanted in the past few days. But I know deep down that I would regret that. I am so close to graduating and a few more months of hell isn't going to get in my way.

Thank God for general conference week because not only did I hear so many things that were meant for me to hear, I was also able to put things in perspective, picked up the pieces, and get to work again.

Story #355: Saturday rambling

Went to the laundry room to get our clothes with Mr.L. Saw a little boy about 4-5 years old playing by himself on the playground next to the laundry room. Wondered where his parents were and if it was fun to play on the slide alone. Left the laundry room, proceeded back to our apartment, and saw the boy walking past us rather quickly towards his house. Observed that his eyes were glued on me as he ran past me. Asked Mr.L why the boy stared at me and he replied in a whisper, "cause we're stranger." The boy started picking up his pace and turned his head sideway to see what we were whispering about. It was too comical not to laugh so we laughed out loud. Upon hearing our laughter, the boy turned around and said, "what are you laughing at?". That only provoked us to laugh louder. He took off running towards his house. I felt like a meanie. But kids are funny. Hopefully we get to be called to the nursery again. 

My Saturday has been good so far. What about yours?