on my way to china!

I finally made it! I usually deal with long flights well, but I'm sick (an intense cold, perhaps?) and I couldn't wait to get off! The reason why my flight was extra long was 'cause my dad didn't book my flight early enough and I had to make a 5 hour stop in Japan (which I would usually really really love).

The stop there wasn't completely horrible though! I am now pretty familiar with the Narita airport haha I've walked to like every corner of the international flights portion of the airport. One day, I'll explore the domestic side!

The best part of wandering around was coming across the Narita Origami Museum! It was amazing!! I loved it so much I kept taking pictures of it like a freak. I have tons of pictures, but I'll put up a few here and the rest will be on Facebook! All in all, I need to go to a bigger origami museum.

Also, it was kind of crazy figuring out how to get to my dorm 'cause I had to talk to the taxi cab driver :( He was the first person I have ever spoken to with a real Beijing accent and if I couldn't understand him/he couldn't understand me, we'd pretty much hit a roadblock (haha unintentional pun) :( Fortunately, he was a nice guy and we had some interesting small talk :) Except he's a freakin beast and drove hella fast and pretty much like wove through traffic like a psycho, I thought I was going to die!

Here I am, alive the next morning and I can feel it, it's gonna be sooo hot today (or well everyday!)

"don't you love it when..." #1 & twitter

A new segment! Not really all that original since it's just the opposite of my "don't you hate it when..."s :P I didn't really think I'd make it since it just seemed more fun to write about random things I hated, but I felt the need to make it today!



Don't you love it when you go to a hair salon and the people wash your hair? (Even that little girl is doing it.) IT FEELS SO GOOD. Mmm if only I could wash my hair like that all the time.

As you can probably guess, I just went to go get my hair cut and now my head feels like several pounds lighter! It's a nice feeling!

Totally unrelated, but I got myself a Twitter! What a momentuous day. I never thought I would get one, but now I have one and I'm not entirely sure how to work it. Technology is so complicated :( Follow me and teach me how to work this thing! [http://twitter.com/ohhellomai]

finished my first year of college!

It feels like it went by all too quickly :( Now I feel like I have to do everything I possibly can within my remaining 3 years!! I guess you could say that's both a good and bad way to look at things haha

It's nice to be home, but I feel like I'm in a rush since soon after coming home on Tuesday (5/11), I drove back down to SoCal (LA & SD) for my Grandma's 10th year anniversary as a nun (that's not an often celebrated occasion)!

Now I only have 3 days until I'm off to Japan (for 5 hours) then to Beijing, China! Feeling excited, busy and tired right now though! There's too much preparation and packing to be done :(

catch up post!

Wow, it's already March!! I'm a little sad I haven't written anything in February, but I guess I'll just write a little summary/bullet points of what happened since my last post until now! (It'll probably end up being a super long post)

1/17 - Sambo came from UCSD to visit me (and other people, but who cares about them. Just kidding!) She had this crazy adventure coming into and leaving from USC! It'd take forever to write it out, but those who should know already know what happened :) Through her crazy travels, she discovered cucumber soda which is surprisingly good and it really does taste like cucumber!



We went to Little Tokyo and found some pretty interesting things. It was super fun, but it was raining cats and dogs D:



After helping Sambo get her taxi for only like 5 minutes in the crazy rain, we were super soaked!


1/20 - I talked to the guy who played "Dewey" from that old TV show "Malcolm in the Middle." It wasn't really a star-struck experience or anything and it was actually the most mundane/insignificant conversation ever, but I talked to him nonetheless! I hope he doesn't see this post since he's a student at USC too haha

1/29 - I went back to Little Tokyo again, but with Steffo this time! As usual, we did random stuff and found lots of weird things.

Steffo likes little boys.



We found a book called Haikus for Jews. It's pretty inspiring. Here's a random Haiku I picked out. To be honest, I don't really get how this Haiku has anything to do with Jews, but I found it relatively amusing.



2/5 - This time I went to K-town with Steffo! As expected, we found some more weird stuff.



2/6 - I'm not sure if this is the right date, but I believe this is when my dorm flooded D: I live on the 3rd floor and somebody down the hall pulled (?) on the sprinkler and well, flooded the dorms! Lucky for me, my suite wasn't affected, but Stanley's was and he got locked out of his room. Coincidentally enough, Steffo was gone for some Christian convention, so I let him stay for the night.

MMMM snug like a bug in Steffo's bed.



2/17 - I went to my first press conference ever! It was for Kollaboration 10. I really didn't do much of anything, but camwhore with Andrew. Way to do something productive, Mai.

2/19 & 20 - USC was holding a Japanese Film Festival of sorts and It was really good! I watched Hana to Alice & Kuuki Ningyo. Both were really interesting to watch, so I highly recommend others to see it too!

2/27 - I had my first dance show at USC ever with TCDance, "Dance to a New Year." It went really well (as a whole. I don't really think I can say the same for myself though). I was having thoughts that maybe TCD wasn't for me, but after the show, I realized I really liked it :) From what I know, I think I'll be staying at least a while longer!

3/4 - There was a movie screening of "Mother" at USC and I really really enjoyed it! One of the most interesting stories I've seen in a long time :) I also recommend people to watch this movie to! It was really great to see Kim Hyeja & Won Bin to play characters completely different from what most people are used to seeing them do.

For the first time ever, I ate at Chipotle with Donna :0 The burritos are so fat! I dropped so much stuff that I formed a circle of food around me on the floor :( There was a free promotional thing at Coffee Bean, so I got a free Spring Peach Tea Latte too (thanks to Annie)! Mmm what a tasty day.



3/5 - I went to the 3 Romanticists concert which was supposed to feature Kim Bum Soo, Yoo Seung Chan and K.will, but only the last 2 went 'cause Kim Bum Soo didn't get a performing visa :( Regardless, it was super awesome! Even though Yoo Seung Chan is a rookie, he did a great job. I already loved K.will, but to see him live made me love him even more! Yoo Seung Chan gave out free CDs at the concert too :)

3/6 - I went to Kollaboration 10 and it was pretty fun! I've never been before, so I didn't know what to expect. I now know that I like the Shrine haha It's so big and even when I was on the balcony I could still see really well! Congrats to USC's very own Jason Yang for winning an award! (I don't remember what it's called :\)

3/10 - Janis let me try one of these cookies that her friend made and although I only had one, it was so good and I knew I had to try it! They were green tea cookies with red bean paste filling :) I'm not very experienced in cooking/baking, so I figured I'd have to try really hard not to screw it up! Funny enough when I tried to go find all the ingredients with Steffo in K-town, they didn't have anything we needed! I never knew that Korean markets wouldn't have green tea powder of red bean paste :\ In the end, our second batch turned out really well! Or at least my sister likes it a lot :)



I actually have a lot more pictures, but uploading these alone took forever & I got lazy! Check out my facebook for more :)

And now I'm on Spring Break!! :)

so busy and too lazy

The title sums up how I feel right about now! Instead of being productive, I've decided to write a post after so long! Just some random tidbits from the past week!

Over the 3 day weekend, my friend from USCD, Sambo, came to visit! Whooo!

While we were walking to TCF's Girls' Night, somebody driving by super fast through a twizzler at us and screamed, "Merry Christmas!!" It was really weird. Obviously, we weren't able to catch it, so this is the twizzler on the sidewalk.



Even though the weather has been awful, Sambo was only going to be here for a few days, so I wanted to show her some of LA! We went to Little Tokyo and ate at this little restaurant which I unfortunately forgot the name of, but here's an interesting picture of their outdoor menu. I really love that place! (Actually, I would not eat the "popular with the ladies"... I'd rather eat the guy one!!)



When it was time for my friend to go back to UCSD, it was raining cats and dogs. I live by one of the gate entrances and we told the taxi to come pick her up there, but we forgot that the gate was closed on weekends. We kind of just stood in the rain, thinking about what to do. All of a sudden, she started climbing over the gate, which is pretty tall and pointy looking by the way. I was totally scared she was going to slip and impale herself on it or just die. But, she's baller so she made it over just fine. It's too bad I don't have any pictures of this moment though D:

the celebration of my birth in 2009.

BIRTHDAY POST! Even though it's been over a week since my actual birthday...

Anyway, this post isn't really for my birthday. It's... for my birthday cakes!

This is the cake my aunt got for me when I was in Disneyland :D



This is my other cake my uncle made for me when I got home!! :D Err... actually I think it's a pie maybe... I don't know! He made me a celebratory edible sweet thing!!



All in all, I had a great birthday thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with me :D I don't really feel 19 though. I still feel like a little kid. My cousin bought me a necklace with a nice little piece of advice on it.

"Live the life you love."

trying to combine everything!

On Monday (12/21), I ate dimsum with my teacher & girls from my high school Mandarin class :D Usually, someone would post up a picture of dimsum, but here's a picture of a guy wearing a Santa hat sitting on the other side of the restaurant.



From Wednesday to Saturday (12/23-26), I was in Disneyland for my birthday!! I love Disneyland, so it was a lot of fun :D (More pictures on FB) (I'll write more about my bday in a different post)



I feel like I keep eating dimsum this break! I also went to eat dimsum with my friend, Erika on Thursday (12/28). I ate jellyfish for the first time in forever that day too :0 (LOOK AT THAT, JIAJUN.)



A proper day of hanging out with a friend can't go by unless I discover something weird, so here's a page from a weird twisted comic book rendition of classic fairy tales/stories.



Randomly when I was at Valley Fair shopping until I met up with Nattie on Wednesday (12/30), I saw some interesting shoes...



Then, I stopped by Maido in Santana Row and saw some super cute bags/backpacks (I want the frog one :X)



Right after the new year began, I realized I had a cut on my finger, so I got a bandage and while opening it, I gave myself another cut. Fantastic! Great way to start off the year.

Hopefully, everyone else started the year off right! Let's hope for a good one :D

random findings!

There's no real point to this post I guess... It's just about weird things I've seen recently.

Here's a huge paper mache ostrich I saw in Anthropologie.

I also discovered this interesting lunchbox while at the bookstore.

Since owls are my favorite animals, I thought this Christmas ornament from Target was cute :D

...As I said, there's no real significance to this post (or any of my other ones).

always behind D:

There's always so much to write about!! I think I'm going to try and get everything up to date today!

So on Thursday (12/17), I visited my high school! I finally got to see our senior present hung up on Main Hall too :D



Looks a lot better on a building than on the floor when we painted it :D

Also, I hung out with Sambo that day too! Whooo! We ate at this Thai restaurant since we couldn't originally find the Korean one. For some reason, I had an outrageous amount of change, so I thought I'd use it when we paid for our food.

That's just 25 cents worth of pennies.

Later on Sunday (12/20), I had a mini get together with Aileen, Emily and Sambo! We just hung out and watched Jurassic Park on the new HD TV my dad bought. It's so clear it looks like the dinosaurs are coming at you! :0

My wonderful friends also brought me some b-day gifts :D

That's all for this mini post, but I'll probably post more in 2 seconds or something.

my mom's a winner!

My mom bought my dad a pair of pants 5 years ago. Apparently, it took him 5 years to decide/realize he doesn't want/need them. So, I went to the mall with my mom to return them. I doubted my mom would be able to do it... but she proved me wrong.

Looks like being a winner runs in the family. (I wish I took a picture of the pants. They're rather ordinary and normal looking, so I don't really know why he didn't want them.)

Also, I made Vietnamese jello (suong sa) with my mom! Whoohoo!

It's probably one of the easiest Vietnamese foods to make out there, so it isn't anything to be extremely proud of. It's just fun to make (and eat). It came out funny looking 'cause of the lighting D:

I've been doing lots of mother-daughter bonding ever since I came home and it's been really fun :D While I was gone, my dad remodeled our old "computer room" into a "tv/board game/weird art room" and I spend a lot of time in there with my mom watching dramas/movies.

As most people know about my mom, she's a skinny little stick and always eats super healthy food, so her snacking late at night is pretty much unheard of. However, on the first day of our nightly tv watching (12/17), it was ALL her idea to munch on all this food.

Hungry much? Actually to be honest, she suggested and brought all that food up... but I probably ate most of it :\ (She's trying to make me fat I know it!! It's like a reverse diet... instead of actually getting skinnier, she's making me fatter so she appears to be even skinnier!! So tricky D: )

Regardless of my mother's foul play, she's the best!

you know it's the holidays when...

...people make funky socks!

With nothing else better to do, I decided to go look around the bookstore and I found some interesting holiday socks.



Reindeer, snowmen and...



...Santa WHOOOOO! (nothing like having a jolly elderly man on your feet to keep you warm through the winter nights.)

I find these socks strange, yet awesome at the same time.

And here's a random bunny puppet. Can you spot what is wrong with it?



That's right. The mouth of the puppet isn't actually at the mouth of the bunny. So, when you're talking and flapping that thing around... its ACTUAL MOUTH is not moving. That's really wrong, confusing, misleading and so many other bad things for small children.

Also, the bookstore has books (surprise, surprise!!), so I went to go check that out.



The fabulous cover and title caught my eye (it even has a weird bumpy texture) and I thought I'd flip through the pages and get a little preview.



Yes, I really want to read this book.

last few days at school... part 2!

I forgot to write about a few other things!

In order to use up our remaining dining dollars, Steffo and I went crazy and bought lots of cereal bars/water/everything. Here's an unusually long power bar that Steffo bought.



While waiting forever at the ticket office to find out if our suite mates wanted to go watch this dance show with us, we walked over to the school pharmacy. We were browsing at the various products and something caught our eye.



We were pretty enthralled at our discovery, but every time we touched a box... all of the other boxes would fall over and whenever we tried to stack them properly, they'd all fall over AGAIN. It took us a really long time to put all the boxes back in their original places.

And... I got a care package made by my high school from my parents! Whoo!



It's actually not anything super amazing. Just some food, school newsletter and a nice little pamphlet of messages from my senior teachers. I appreciate the thoughtfulness though!

AW YEAH! To celebrate the completion of our Japanese final exam, my Japanese class and I went to go eat Korean barbecue! ('cause we should be eating Korean food after a Japanese test) Now for a random picture of an enthusiastic classmate.



Also, my suite mates and I did Secret Santa :D It was really fun 'cause we haven't had the chance to hang out all together in so long! We were so busy with studying/midterms/papers that it was really nice to hang out. I was Brittany's Secret Santa and I spent a lot of time looking for a good gift to give her. I forgot to take a picture, but I bought her a design-your-own-calendar thing, white beanie, lip gloss and a friendship bracelet made by yours truly. Hopefully, she liked it! My Secret Santa was... Julia! She got me a t-shirt, 2 pairs of socks and a bracelet! I was so thrilled about being with everyone that I felt like not studying. (...wonderful idea! I had 2 finals the next day.)



Lastly, a picture of my best friends Stanley and Steffo getting cozy on her bed. <3



<333

last few days at school

This post will just be a mélange of stuff that happened before I came home for winter break!

So, it finally happened. Okay, not completely, but close enough. I almost had a real conversation with Steffo while she was sleeping. I don't really think she was answering any of my questions, but we were relaying words back and forth. Until the day comes in which I do get to have my real conversation, I'll be satisfied with this.

"Do I have to go talk to those people?"

"What?"

"The people... who are talking."

"Who are the people that are talking?"

"Or maybe...it's the one after that..."

"What?!"

"I don't know what I'm talking about... maybe it is the one after... I don't know..."

And then she fell asleep.

On a random note, Stanley came and visited! How rare. We're supposed to neighbors!! Whoohoo he made it into his frat!

(I'm his best friend and I don't even know what it's called!! Greek symbols confuse me.)

Spirit finger gloves!! AW YEAH!! Too bad they aren't mine. If I actually owned them, I might fail all my classes because I'd be so distracted by how oddly fascinating they are.

The day before I left for home (12/11), I went with Steffo to her Intervarsity Christmas Party thing! We played lots of random games and it was pretty fun :D One game we did was to make outfits out of toilet paper and vinyl. I'm not very good with that stuff, so I just sat on the sidelines and cheered my team on with great enthusiasm and vigor. Really, I did. I didn't just sit there and not support my team. That's very unlike me. Anyway, this is how it turned out.

I had a lot of fun after finals & I was kind of sad to come home because now that I was more free, I had time to hang out with people and do fun stuff D: Oh well, when I come back, it'll be a new semester and we can start the fun all over again!

gobble gobble

It's been forever since I last blogged D: Now that I'm home for winter break... I can catch up a bit!

I'll start from... Thanksgiving. My family is pretty large, so we usually have 2 parties for everything so... one for my mom's side and one for my dad's! Double the fun!! For some reason at my uncle's house, there were lots of grapefruits. That's not a very Thanksgiving-like food. Anyway, so we start peeling away and just eating them non-stop after our 5 rounds of dinner.

When I was a little kid, my dad used to scoop out the inside and put the grapefruit peel on my head like a hat. Reminiscing the old times, we asked my dad to make a hat, but then I thought we could be a little bit more innovative with my dad's fruit carving skills... and this is what happened.

For some reason, we're doing the YMCA pose. I'm sporting the curly French moustache. Next to me, my sister is wearing one of the melon hats. They don't really fit as well since she doesn't have a baby-sized head anymore... My dad has a Hitler-inspired moustache and my cousin on the far right has a Confucius moustache. Now that I look at our picture... this could look very racist/stereotypical/offensive. This is all just in good fun though!

There's still more to update about, but I'll save that for later!

"don't you hate it when..." #6 & australia

Today (12/01) while I was taking a shower, I went to go grab for the soap and I realized...

Don't you hate it when there's no possible way for you to ever finish a bar of soap just because you need to grip onto it somehow and using it to completion means there would be nothing for you to hold onto?

Yeah, me too. (Actually, I made it even smaller today (12/03) without breaking it or anything! Too bad I'm too lazy to take a picture of it now)

This goes for erasers too. How can you finish those?!

For the little bit of soap/eraser we don't use, we shouldn't have to pay for that part!!

EVERYONE, LET'S FIGHT THE SYSTEM AND GET THE REFUNDS WE DESERVE! (I don't even know what I'm saying right now. You can ignore this.)

Anyway, here's a strange little discovery I made...

So, I've had nail polish on for a while and it's been chipping off and making weird shapes.

I'm totally serious. The nail polish on my left index fingernail looks like Australia.

I wish there were more than 7 continents, so I could have a continent on each of my fingers.

contemplative thoughts

Still postponing that thanksgiving post... (where are those pictures?!)

Sorry, not a funny post today :\ (but a thoughtful one!)

Anyway, I've been watching this show about a girl being kind for the sake of being kind. Just impulsively acting on kindness and being thoughtful to others. Okay, that's not what the show is really about, but that's what I've been getting out of it recently.

Today (12/01), there was randomly this sample sale along the road at school and I thought I'd go take a look. I went into this tent full of photography and paintings and I saw these koi fish paintings that reminded me of my dad.

Before I was born, my dad used to paint a lot. He really likes scuba diving and just water in general, so in turn he also likes fish (...fish as friends, not food). He painted this huge painting of koi fish around my birthday a million years ago and to this day, it still is hanging above his bed.

I knew that I had to get one of these paintings for him just because I knew he would like it. Actually, I was caught in between 2 different paintings and I had a really hard time deciding. The artist asked me, "Which of the two paintings reflects your father's personality?" One was a heavy mix of black and red with gold fins and a gold tail and the other was mostly bright gold with specks of black and red.

Recently, he's been giving me a hard time about double majoring in IR and EALC, studying 3 languages and studying abroad. I know he just nags to me about it because he worries about whether I can accomplish all that I want to do, but it does get annoying that he seems to worry too much. His intentions are good and I know that he wants to support me in everything I do.

Despite the fact that he's been bothering me so much about what I'm confident in achieving, I know he cares and rather than being relentlessly hard on me and forcing me to do whatever he wants, he's been more like a light to help guide me down the path I've chosen.

So, I chose the bright gold one.

It may not look like a fancy painting, but I feel the detail and color really represent my dad and I hope he likes it when I give it to him on Christmas :D (It looks better in person!!)

I'm really glad I got to meet the artist of this painting because he is a really thoughtful man with a lot of insight on life (and he gave me a discount on the painting HAHA :X Shh my dad must not know). I plan to write about him in my next post!

And something more normal like my weird self...

I haven't gone shopping in ages and it's been a long time since I've found something that I really like!

Whoohoo! Weird lighting and a random bag with a funky owl on it :D

I seem to be really into owls... dare I say it? Are they my favorite animals?! MAYBE?! Oh yeah and green is my favorite color (as if nobody could tell). It's taking over all my stuff!!

And yes! That is a new GREEN cellphone with a GREEN OWL attached to it.

Good news! I now have a new phone, so people can actually reach me when I'm in my room now! Yay for having better reception! As you read this post, call me right now!! :D