Which country is the most religious of the all?

Here I am @ the middle of nowhere. Technically it's somewhere, called Springfield, of State of Oregon, USA. I found the name of this city cute, I wonder if there's a little boy named Bart Simpson? This is the day one of my seven day tour to Las Vegas. Lili on the way to the famous Sin City with all kinds of fun you can ever imagine.

For the whole day we are on the bus, with our butts glued on the seat. The view on the way is just fine, with crowed cities and lots of traffic going non-stop on the multi-level highway bridges. One thing i noticed is that how US is a religious country with very patriarchal emotion exhibited in many ways. There's lots of churches, crosses, and monuments built for Jesus. When we were passing by a small town of Washington state, on the one side of highway, there's a park with a gigantic Jesus stature on top of a huge pole, looking over the flowing traffic, god like. No wonder they always fight the war under God's name, they truly believed in God just like the Muslims .

Chopsticks, folk, or none?

She open up a box of sushi from the Honor Roll
She skillfully peers off the plastic rapping
She takes out the bamboo chopsticks
She rubs the chopsticks to remove the excessive bamboo pieces
She's ready to dig in.
She holds the chopsticks at the very end
Trying to pick up a piece of roll
She failed.
She pocks the rice
The chopstick pierced through the roll like a needle.
She try to pick it up again
The roll fillings are squeezed out of the rice and seaweed shell
She tries one more time
The tips of the chopsticks cut through the shell
She opens the roll
She sorts the ingredients like a anatomist examining a dead body
The roll now is no longer a roll
It becomes a strip of rice, seaweed
And unknown mushy fillings laying above each other

And I am sitting across to her
Wanting to tell her this real bad, "Please, just use a folk if you don't know how to use chopstick! It's okay to eat Asian food with folk! For God's sake, don't dissect food like this! "


I have no problem with people don't know how to use chopsticks, after all, it took me 18 years to learn how to use it properly. And until now, my grandma still picks on me for my way of holding the chopsticks, because I always have my thumb sticks up. She said as if i am telling everyone i am the number one.
But, I found people sometimes trying too hard to prove themselves can master this Asian could-be weapon. It is used for eating, thus if you are really hungry, pretending know how to use the chopsticks only causes troubles and suppress your appetite. It also causes indescribable pain for people like me, who does not looking at my own plate while I eat.

Learning is a process, not a one day thing. It may look easy, but please learn from someone who really knows. Sometimes I think our ancestor intentionally designed the chopsticks into such simple shape, making it looked so slick and easy to use, yet if not learned, it can make the food on your plate look so gross.

I am bitchy today. =P

I love snow!

Yes I am excited! I love snow, cause it made school closed for power outage. OK, I do feel very bad for people who are suffering in the darkness at such a chilly weather when you walking on the street your legs felt like icicles. But no school for one day means extra time for me to do work in the coffee shop for my essay, and i get to come home smelling like roasted coffee beans.

As I was grown up in the south of south, I just love snow. In my memory, I have only seen it inside the big man made giant fridge that served as the indoor skating ring. Every year, we would have ice-sculpture exhibition that was always the highlight of the holiday season. They would ship the craftsmen from northern China and stored the ice sculptures indoor for days; when I was a kid, I always fancied about putting on the rental thick red jacket that was way too big for me, though I was a chubby kid. A picture with those transparent ice cubes was worth showing off to the classmates.

My first winter in Canada I saw the snow flakes falling, I ran out and played as if it's a dream come true. Snow piled over night outside our little road side balcony, it's so thick that it was high as half of my calf. I couldn't wait a minus to go outside and play with the snow. I ran to the football field at the back of my apartment building. The view was stunning; it's like miles and miles of white ground, so pure the white that I felt it's so "holy". Ha ha, how innocent was I. Yet, I would never forget that view. I went back home with icicle legs and my pants wet from top to bottom.

I wanted to taste the snow today, but Nico reminded me that since snow is frozen rain, and we have acid rain, thus it would be acid snow. That intimidates me. I wish the air is cleaner that I can just pop those icicles and eat them like lollipop.

Vancouver's first snow this year! It came so early, truly out of my expectation. I am happy that we can have a white Christmas this year. Usually, there's no snow until after Christmas, thus although it's cold @ Xmas day, but I have not yet experience a white Xmas. It's so peaceful to see the little snow flakes falling from the sky. It's not cold outside, a little windy. When the snow flakes touch my face, it feel like little kisses, very cute. The city looks so different under the white coating. It's peaceful, like a oil painting, with no rough edges, smooth.


This is the children's play ground of my building. Kids can never stay at home when there's snow outside. It's like the magic of heaven, signaling the Santa's visit. All those little feet, running on the white powder, jumping around, throwing snowballs. They left, but I can still hear their giggling sounds.

Scattered pieces of music,
Scattered memories,
Unfocused attention,

Unsettled heart.

Picking up pieces, in the rainy day

I miss the beautiful sunny days of autumn, with leaves changing color and crystal clear sky keeping blue as usual. Beautiful things die faster. Thus we remember their beauty, we praise their short life with pictures, poems, and painting. But nothing reserves such beautiful day better than our memory, ie, mental pictures.

We went to Lyn's Canyon on a pretty sunday afternoon. People were playing with icy cold water, dogs running around, teenagers fancying about jumping off the deep cliff to show off their brave-hearts; and me, standing beside the stream, just feeling warm under the sunshine, looking up to the sky. Nothing can be better than a moment like this.