weekly ramblings - update!

[HEART] tattooed
[EYES] red lanterns - CNY is coming up!
[EARS] santa esmeralda
[HEAD] you are what you eat?! Noooooooo!
[HANDS] Burt's Bee Hand Salve

Weirdness! Apparently 4 blokes in sydney have put themselves up for ebay bids - they guarantee a fun weekend (feb 18-19) with "some beers, some snags, some good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs". There might even be a mystery guest from the UK so they said whoever the "lucky winner" is, he/she will basically get 5 for the price of 4!!haha..as I write, the highet bid now is at $1275!! crazyness huh!
Link to the ebay page is here (the bids end 4th Feb)! Hmm, my sis' bday is that weekend also. I still dont know what im getting her! :p jk

Anyways, what else is new these days?! I've been really busy with so many family events and gatherings.
Some random pics I took. I do have cousins my age afterall, not just the younger ones!
We had this japanese buffet lunch at Hyatt and it was yummmm...I still dont know how I managed to fit all that amount of food into my tummy...the stomache is one amazing creation! I must've gotten up 6 times to get food..arghh its bad i know. What I dont like about having buffet is that you don't really get a chance to talk to others. Everyones already thinking about what they are getting next before they finish their current food on their plate.




Anyways, on Monday I was at the gym running on the treadmill whilst flipping through the TV channels, hoping to find a good program which would take my mind off the time (you know how it is). Then, something caught my eyes on Discovery Channel! There was this Ethiopian village lady with this reallly drroooopy bottom lip. At first I thought she was chewing on some beef thats why something was hanging from her mouth..but NO!! its her lips!! Then, she began to insert a circular clay disk to her lips by stretching her lowerlip like a rubber band! Apparently, its called 'lip plates' which is part of the culture of Surma tribe in Ethiopia ><
Here is a photo of a lady wearing one. It can be quite disturbing and painful to look at.
Interesting facts! They said that the greater the lip plate is, the more precious the woman is. Size is proportional to the number of cows a man has to pay for the a woman to marry her. At a young age, a small incision is made into the girl’s bottom lip, the front teeth of the lower jaw are removed, and a disc of baked clay is inserted into the incision. As the girl ages, and the bottom lip stretches with the weight of the plate, the smaller discs are removed and replaced with ever-larger discs, further stretching the lip until it becomes so distended that the lip (with the plate removed) can sometimes be pulled right over the head!
Wow, the most interesting program I've seen all week. The best part is?! ---> I ran for 30min straight on the 'mill without counting down!! yayyy to educational tv!

Yesterday, I went on a day trip to TaiChung with my parents and my dad's college friends. I was the only 'kid' with a whole bunch of fiftysomethings. They hired this van and a driver so it was great that we didnt need to drive and could chat with everyone. The tour guide was my dad (we all thought he should've been one professionally) and the van itself was pretty neat coz it has karaoke! I'd never karaoke-ed before and because the trip was long, they were all singing (songs from the 70s)...uhmmm...I pretended that I was asleep so that they wouldn't make me sing. Yes I know, that makes me an anti-social. Anyways, that many hours on the van also forced me to listen to my parents convo with their college friends. While they were reminiscing about the past, I could actually see them as college kids!! Crazy. I really wish that some day 30 years later I'll be able to do something similar with my friends and introduce them by saying "we went to school/college together". (oldness i know)!
When I was a high schooler, I used to think friends are the people you talk to on the phone for hours each night because you really cannot afford to wait till the next morning at school. Now, as a college student, a friend is not necessary someone I have to talk to every week (or even see), but someone who'd call/write to me once in a while (or on special occasions) to catch up.

Arghhh, so I am still in the process of enrolling for my classes next semester. I think I *may* still have 2 more years. huh?! what?!
Okay, over the next 2 years i gotta do -> THE thesis, stats double major (?), honors (hopefully!)
I dont know, everything is still uncertain.....arghhhhhhhhhhhhh
I long for the day of my graduation, and the day when I'll finally get to say "we went to college together". :D

Love the message from last Sunday's sermon. (Im still not that used to the church here, but I'm learning different things...and I guess I am leaving in 2-3 weeks anyway).
"For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)
Really made me think about my priorities...arghh its hard to get it straight but I am still learning.

Ok, my tv show is on :p