Chinese New Year Dinner, all made from scratch & with love by my lovely, Mother!

A “Big Hug” bear balloon. It’s floating in my room at my apartment. I hope that when I return it’s still floating!

Roses (: They smelled really nice. Thank you Boyfriend!

For lunch, boyfriend and I went to the oh-so-famous Din Tai Fung for “xiao long bao” Very yummy!

Detail photo of their “xiao long bao”. (:

I hope everyone had a wonderful day! Cheers!

One, these workers are being paid $4 per hour, working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week in a factory with no running water and no bathroom. I’ve been working since I turned 16, and I was angry when I got paid $5.40 when the minimum wage was $6.50 but I had a bathroom and free scoop of ice cream per shift. These people are dirt poor already and we are taking advantage of it. By buying their cheap cardigans and earrings, we’re basically feeding the fire and letting this vicious cycle continue! We’re funding this madness!

Two, everyone shops here therefore, you’ll anything but orginal. When I mean everyone, I mean everyone’s mother’s sister’s dog even shops here. Don’t give me that “But I’ll wear it differently with my own style and make it my own”. The bottom line is at the end of the day is – you have that skirt and so do I.

Three, the clothes here are poor quality and will rip, tear or fall apart after three times and one wash. Gross. And because they get worn out so easily, you go back and buy MORE clothes. Spend your money wisely people. I rather buy one $100 cardigan that will last me  a couple years than a $12 cardigan that rips within two weeks.

I know it’s hard to deny such a great source of cheap clothing especially when you’re a shopaholic like me. But I know that I can walk through a Forever 21 and not try on anything moreover, buy anything actually makes me feel quite powerful. I’ve been banning Forever 21 for more than 6 months! Find out sources of affordable clothing elsewhere!

Last bit of advice, it’s called self-control, ladies. Don’t feed the fire and continue on this cycle of poor people making clothes for you. If you don’t have the money to splurge on clothes, then you shouldn’t be shopping in the first place! “It’s quality over quantity.” Learn it, Live it.

Another big thing is that I’m not longer going to be a teen. I feel like I’m going to have to start using anti-wrinkle cream and cover up. I found 3 new white hairs just last week. White hair runs early in my family but this is really tragic. It’s okay, this gives me a good excuse to change my hair color.

Is there anything I should do before I turn into a “young adult”? I’m not interested into buying tobacco, appearing in any sexual films, or getting any tattoos. I do wish to go skinny dipping… Don’t judge! I want to be able to look back someday and say I was a wild child and teenager and did some crazy stuff. Of course, nothing illegal or immoral!

Flip flops with jeans that drag

I thought people understood that flip flops are for summer and jeans that drag are for never. I admit I went through a stage in high school where I left the rain soak up my jeans to my knees because I didn’t care but I’m in college now and so are the rest of the people walking around campus. It doesn’t scream “I don’t care” anymore it screams “I’m stupid”. Sitting in an hour or longer lecture in soggy jeans is just cold, itchy and uncomfortable. Invest in some rain boots if you’re going to wear jeans that drag on a rainy day. Target sells them for $20 a pair! And if you can’t afford that – wear shorts if you have to!

Wearing a Purse instead of a backpack

Seriously people, you’re going to school. Students wear backpacks. Leave your purses at home or for the weekends! I love seeing people struggle between holding their laptop, books, binders, etc and their umbrella. Get a backpack that you can carry all your stuff in so your hands are free to hold the umbrella whichever way the rain is coming. I don’t understand why people wear such small purses that fit nothing more than their cellphone (which they are constantly texting on anyways) and a tampon. The best part is when they give up trying to balance everything that they either 1) let go of their umbrella and get soaked or 2) fall apart and have all their books drop in the puddle. I’m not being dishearted, just being honest!

Leather boots & stilettos

If you think that your leather boots are going to keep your dry, guess again. Leather does not mix well with rain and in the end will shrink and your feet end up smelling like dead rats. And if you think stilettos will give you an advantage because you have more height than the puddle, think harder. I saw a girl walking to class today from my apartment (it’s about a mile long) in leather boots with stilettos-like heels (AND WITH A PURSE with JEANS THAT DRAG). What a complete mess she was. I don’t think she even made it as far as campus for all I’m concerned. She was strutting the sidewalk like the runway. The only thing she’s isn’t going to run away from is falling flat on her face.

I know this is not really a WHAT TO WEAR on an rainy day – but I did believe you all have enough common sense to do. Guess not since I just wrote about WHAT NOT TO WEAR based on today’s observation. Don’t worry, I only saw around every 3 people out of 10 wear something ridiculous on a rainy day. We have hope (and plenty of rain ahead of us!)!

I went home this weekend forgetting my Macbook charger at my apartment and now I’m trying to make 8 hours last for 72 hours. …Yeah most likely it won’t happen so therefore I have resorted back to my old Acer laptop (that’s a piece of trash) to go online, check emails, etc. I have to savage whatever battery I have on the Macbook in case something important came up.

This laptop is such a joke I wouldn’t even give it to my worst enemy to use. The lack of mobility due to the fact that I need to plug the charger at all times makes it a desktop more than a laptop. The battery itself is dead and the laptop is basically on life support from the charger. Plus it is the slowest thing in the world that I am lagging just to type this entry. Oh worst of all – it’s running on Vista. FML-much?

Enough of this junk, at least I will be able to grab my charger by tomorrow afternoon. Life will resume then but until then, I have come up with possible suggestions to what to do with an old, useless laptop.

• Sell it for cash: There’s plently of sites and places you can take your laptop to for cash. They will give you a quote and then if you like it – you can sell it in for a nice check. It might not be worth a lot but it’s better than nothing.
• Fix & replace it: If you know what’s wrong with your laptop and you can fix/replace parts to make it good as new – go for it. But I am not a computer guru so I rather not try.
• Digital Frame: you can set it as a screen saver with your photos of family, friends and/or anything really and use it as a frame.
• Storage: Use it to store old photos, movies, etc. Just be sure that the laptop doesn’t fail that bad that it never turns on. I would opt for this if my laptop was just slow…
• Chuck it at someone: at least you’ll get a laugh out of it

Lesson of the day: Spend that extra grand or two on a MacBook that will last you a couple years. Don’t try to save money and get a barely-passing-by laptop. If you don’t have enough – SAVE up for one. It’s life-changing. Bonus: You’ll grow fewer white hairs from all this stress as well.