Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Home Town

I stayed in my hometown for 2 weeks.


It is such an interesting place. It will always have a special place in my heart and yet I will never want to go back and live there, ever, again.

The reason I am still trying to go back is because my 82 years old grandma is still kicking and well. She is awesome. Despite the fact that she had a stroke 3 years ago, and became half paralyzed, she is in fine shape. She eats three times a day, and poops at least once a day. Doctor said she has a heart of a 30 year old and all other vital organs are always working properly. Her skin is good too. At age of 82, her face is tight and no sagging whatsoever. Oh the irony. I mean she barely uses lotion and the only means of clean her face is to use a hand towel. Yet, compared to my friends who are in their 20s her skin is like a flawless jade. She lost her ability to speak already and she is too embarrassed to even try. I actually think that if she really tries, she can get it back again. Ah grandma, she is so sweet.

I have to mention my aunt too. She is probably the best daughter anyone can have. She cooks the three meals a day that my grandma eats and every meal is different. In addition my grandma is a faithful Buddhist so she can't eat any meat. Despite the difficulty of cooking up different recipes, my aunt keeps the menu fairly diverse. Also, my grandma needs to pee, a lot. So my aunt can never leaves the house. During the day she has to take her to the bathroom numerious times and it doesn't stop at night either. For that reason, my aunt has to wake up 3-5 times a night to help my grandma pee. Luckily there are two other aunts who assist her to take care of my grandma. They do it in turns, like the old traditional family would for their elderly members. It touched me tremendously and definitely made an impact on my behavior as well.

On the other hand, my other grandma, my mom's mom, has become insane. I mean medically insane. She became insane when my mom was young but luckily her condition was stable. She wasn't going around stabbing people, rather, she just walked and sang weird songs a lot. My favorite uncle and my mom would hold my grandma's hand and walk with her, you know, to just make sure she doesn't wonder off to far away or kill herself. She was known as the crazy in the community, ah, my poor mom and uncle. Even though people would know that she is the crazy person in the neighborhood, no one was afraid of her since she only does her own thing. However, this time I realized that she is much more than just a bit crazy and her "own thing" affects tons of people in the family. For some reason, she feels that she can die at any moment and believes that my mom and my uncle have infinity amount of money. In her own words, "my son prints money!" So, she goes to hospital whenever she has one of those panic episodes. Everytime she goes, she demands to stay there in observation. Of course since it is China and it is my hometown, where hospitals are like hotels, and some doctors are no better than butchers, they are more than glad to admit my grandma till they hit the capacity of beds, only then they kick her out. She, on the other hand, without realizing her own craziness, is so grateful that those doctors are saving her life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are wasted like this and my mom is so helpless. After closely examine her, my grandma in fact is a healthy person. She has diabetes but only to a small extend. Doctors already prescribed her insolent and other medicines to keep her blood sugar level in check. She is much healthier than her children in some aspects. So, my mom has talked to my uncle and decided that they can't fuel her bank account as if they are printing money. The funny thing is if she doesn't have money she will demand it from her children. Soon enough she has figured out who really has money. Then she will focus on that person, using irrational shouting, calm guilty attacks and some tears and hysterical non-sense talking to make the richer children to give in. See, even a crazy mother can master these conventional means to make their children's life miserable. Oh mothers, we love and aren't we helpless. She has four children and only my mom and my first uncle gave in a long time ago. My grandma, with this information has seized asking money from her other two children altogether. If the per month payment to her bank account is slow or little, she will give a verbal beat down with a long distance phone call whenever she can. Isn't she sweet. But the nanny told us that despite the fact that she is crazy, she is not stupid. If the bank account doesn't have enough money in it, she will not go to the hospital. So now my mom and uncle decided to limit her per month allowance and spend that money on insurance because you know the real expensive expenditures will come later, when she is ACTUALLY sick.
See, isn't my hometown just the best place haha.

Also this place has so many memories. Good and bad of course. I had the most fun when I was little here. In the winter, which lasts more than 5 months a year, snow will cover just about everything. Ground will be frozen and form an inch thick icy shell. Cars are forced to wear chains to operate and salt trucks will never stop working during that time. Back then people's living standards weren't high so we didn't have the snowboard and ski resorts. So all we could do was ice slides, sleds, skate, and making snowman everywhere. It was simple yet it was the best as I know it. Compared to how I am today, I am always amazed how easily kids could back satisfied back then.

On the other hand, hometown is also the place where I started to realize that I love the cock. I actually taught a friend of mine how to jack off and then we would have jackoff sessions. Then I proceeded to suck his balls, hmm.. as an eleven year old kids and I was already not that innocent lol. He was clueless though. He is straight and I kind feel bad now. When I visited two years ago he was supposed to come to my dinner party. I actually thought, oh man, awkward... But he never showed. I guess it was a bit awkward. haha.

Hometown is also a place where I got critically sick. That was the darkest time of my life. It was an autoimmune disease which still lingers today. The disease hit fast and hard and made my body a permanent host. I was sick then dying and it developed extremely fast. My parents didn't realize its severity and that made me hate them for a long time. Especially my dad. But everything is ok now.

Everytime I go back, regardless for what reason, all the memories would find their way back to my heart. It is the little detail that makes my mind tingling all over. I would sometimes smirk, flush, or laugh out loud without myself even knowing it. I guess something can never be forgotten.

For those of you who can barely see snow in your life, this is how my hometown looks like in the winter. It is peaceful, quiet and yet the calm whiteness that envelopes city comes with a bang every year. I love it.










Monday, September 04, 2006

The aging effect

I already expected it, but I never thought that it would have been like this. I still remember when I just started at USC, I was pretty desperate to fit in. I didn't live at school, though school's dorm condition wasn't necessarily the best out there, I still wished that I could have lived at school. So I decided to try out a fraternity. First night, I got extremely drunk, and puked all over in my car, and then I proceeded to puke 7 more hours. My mouth was leaking blood toward early morning. That didn't stop me, The frat looked good. It wasn't a big one but enough for my taste and the pledge class wasn't too small either. So I continued to get drunk every night. I didn't really enjoy it though. I really didn't know what I was doing, I just thought that if I kept hanging in there, I would be part of something. But then the pledge class got small for people started to drop out thoroughout the semester. Eventually, I dropped out too. It was a bit devastating for me. After all that, I still didn't become a part of something that has a sense of heritage to it (other than the school itself of course). It's been a long time since I dropped out then, but the memory of people puking everywhere was pretty vivid.

On Friday, my friend Hester and I were doing party hopping. The plan sounded fantastic. We were going to stop by at Sunset in Hollywood for a house party. This guy named Peter, an Irish actor student met us at a club called The Day After. I really didn't remember how he looked like anymore but apparently he liked Hester very much and they had a friendship/pending relationship kinda thing going on lately. All his friends were actor students. When we got there, the party didn't really start because their landlord told them if they party that night, he would call the police. So we just sat there and chatted. One side note, I have to mention that there was this one very cute and easy going guy named Joey. His bicepts were so hot and his composure was just very down to earth. He got some black hair under his armpit. I thought that was very macho and hot lol... I liked that guy. So I was talking to him most of the time. Of course he was totally straight and his girlfriend was his roomate. Anyway, music was playing but no dancing or whatever. We were chilling. I didn't think I could really call that a party per se, but then it felt like one. There was a keg, and other liquors were everywhere. People were definitely drinking and laughing. It was chill.

After that we headed to a frat party around USC. The promoter was the frat's event organizer and he had a class with Hester and just wanted to date her desperately. But Hester had no feeling for him, so another just friend kinda thing going on. It was a decent size party, Probably 150~200 people were present and dancing and drinking. Four years ago, I would have felt a bit uneasy. Actually I still did, but it was different. The similarity was that I didn't feel fit. Four years ago, it might be the urge to impress people in the frat or drink or chasing tails what not that made me feel a bit annoyed. But today, I just suddenly felt that they were so god damn young, too young actually. I saw this one freshmen mentally passed out long ago, but was holding on the arm of a dirty old sofa that was put outdoors next to a tree. The acid and achohol came like streams out of his mouth. "It wouldn't even be good for the plants" I thought. He looked so wasted. I have seen plenty drunk people, but "wasted" was the most appropriate on this guy. Because we were a bit more "special", we went upstairs of a house, and it was suddenly all quiet and clean. The promoter, named Kevin opened a bottle of martini and started to mix drinks. There was also a huge bowl of jello. It felt so funny somehow. I felt like I was 19 again. It was also sad, because I wished it were true. But I am 23 and there, that was just kinda weird. Hester didn't like this kind of crowd either. We are older now, and we do like to go to a bit more mature environment in whcih we can dance but not that many drunks around.

This whole experience is a bit unsettling to me. The first party feels alright, and the second is alright too. But I know for a fact that my style is moving toward the first one. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but then I still feel very depressed at the fact that I am becoming old at such a fast pace. Two years ago, I would still loved this party for what it could offer, but now I just feel it is a bit too much unnecessary excess of everything to have "fun". I really want to stay young, and the difference between me and a 19 year old, not just the obvious appearance differences, but also the mentality differences are very evident and they are the last things that I want on me. Oh well, at least I am still an intern and have 1 more semester to go... So that still makes young right? haha