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Off to Europe

Manda — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:52:09 +0000

I’m flying out to Europe tonight, which is where I will be spending the next three weeks. I will be staying with family friends in southern Germany, as well as going on various mini-trips to nearby countries and major cities to do lots of sightseeing. Obviously, I am very, very excited! I’ll have intermittent Internet access while I’m away, so I’ll be able to be contacted via email and I’m hoping to be able to post to my blog semi-frequently like I did when I went to the East Coast.

I’ll be returning home the third week of August, where I will have a very short turnaround from my return from Europe to my departure to China for study abroad (not to mention my birthday to celebrate!). Nothing like wrapping up my summer vacation with a bang!

I Am Me

Manda — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:25:39 +0000

I’ve been following the website Post Secret for quite some time now, but this was the first secret (from this week’s post) that struck a chord with me:

All my life I’ve felt I’ve been caught between the worlds of the East and West. I’m a half-American, half-Chinese girl who spent early childhood in Hong Kong and formative years in Western countries. I speak the language of my home (Cantonese) and am minoring in Mandarin Chinese at university, yet I won the award for highest marks in English at my Australian school and got top grades in my English classes in the US, both in high school and college. I know the ins and outs of both Asian culture and Western culture, from the importance of displaying modesty to bragging about one’s achievements. I go out and have fun with the best of them, yet study hard with the discipline of a person whose parents have repeatedly stressed the importance of studying and education. I have Western friends who perceive me to be more Chinese, Chinese friends who perceive me to be more American, and flip-flopping opinions from both sides of my family in regards to which nationality/culture I “belong” more to.

To some, all of the stuff listed above matters; it’s as though putting people in categories and pigeon holes are matters of life and death. It’s like when it comes to checking off what ethnicity I am in the census: why isn’t there an option to choose more than one race? Can’t I qualify as both on paper when I do mentally and emotionally? Why do I have to choose what I “feel more like,” Chinese or American? How can I pick between two cultures I have grown up in, two families that I have, two parts that make up who I am? None of this should matter, although sometimes, people insist it does. What really matters is that I am me and nothing, no category or description or label, can define what makes me, me.

I feel like I sent this secret in myself.

I Might Be a Hypocrite But At Least I Have A Nintendo DS

Manda — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:53:36 +0000

Remember when I rediscovered my Gameboy Color and said I wouldn’t get a Nintendo DS because I couldn’t justify the cost for the console or games? Yeah, I do too. I also am now in the possession of a shiny blue Nintendo DS Lite.

How did this happen, when I was so adamant about the fact that a DS would be a waste of money, seeing as I had a Gameby Color? And the fact that I just really wanted to play Pokemon Silver on the Color (which I already had), even though the DS had the remake, SoulSilver? And I’m not employed this summer, so how did I magically justify the expense of a new DS lite?

There were a lot of reasons. I wanted to play the new DS games, SoulSilver is cooler than Silver, I am going to be doing a lot of flying and traveling in the next month so I need something to entertain myself with during the long hauls (which, to me, justified the expense – turns out boredom is pricey). However, what it really came down to was the technology: Gameboy Color has no backlight. Nintendo DS does. Either my eyes are crappier than they were when I first played my Gameboy Color ten years ago, or in those ten years my eyes have been spoiled by the wonders of backlight technology. No matter which, I wanted something where my eyes didn’t have to strain after fifteen minutes of game time… thus, I got a DS.

I know there are lots of DS fans out there, so anyone want to recommend some awesome DS games?

© Manda for breakthesky.net, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: games, photos, recommendations

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Manda — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:45:04 +0000

Tagline: No toy gets left behind.

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty

Summary: As Andy prepares to leave for college, Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang find themselves in a daycare with a slew of new toys and have to put together a wild scheme to get back home before Andy leaves

5 Words/Phrases: Fantastic animation; witty dialogue; good depth to characters, both new and old; littered with nifty Easter eggs; thoroughly excellent movie

Most Impressed By: The characters of Barbie and Ken seriously had me LOL for most of the time they were on screen!

Least Impressed By: …nothing!

Comments: Gosh, I bawled like a baby at the end of the film :’(

Overall Rating: 10/10

The Oxford (or Serial) Comma

Manda — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:11:42 +0000

I am home from my trip to the East Coast! Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip. I visited friends and family and did a lot of sightseeing, as well as shopping. The best part was when I got together with my friends from school and we were all reunited – the last time we’ll be reunited for a year, as I’m going abroad for the year and most of them are going abroad for at least a semester.

Anyway, now that I’m home again, time to return to my regular blog programming. Stephen Colbert interviewed Vampire Weekend on his show in June 2010 and the following interview took place:

Stephen: Can I take you to task for something, for a second?
Everyone: Sure.
Stephen: In one of your songs, you have the lyrics: Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?
Ezra: Yes.
Stephen: I’m here to tell you, I do. Shall we explain what an oxford comma is to the people?
Ezra: Oh. It’s always a little tough to explain… an oxford comma would be a comma that you’d put before the and or the or, at the end of a list.
Stephen: Red, white, and blue.
Ezra: Exactly.
Stephen: I mean, red comma white comma and blue.
Ezra: Do you really need the comma?
Stephen: Yes, you do need the comma.
Ezra: Why do you need the comma?
Stephen: Because otherwise it’s: red, white and blue. Our flag is not red, white and blue. That’s red and baby blue!
Ezra: There are situations where it’s necessary.
Stephen: All situations. All of them except it’s, like, a law firm. That’s every other— No, listen, have you heard of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style?
Ezra: Yes.
Stephen: Heard of that? I refer you to… (opens book) page fucking two: In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term. (snaps book shut in Ezra’s face)
Ezra: Yeah, but I mean -
Stephen: Does that sting? That’s E.B. White, you heard of him?
Ezra: Respect to Strunk and White, but it’s just protocol. It’s not— there’s no real reason.
Stephen: Yeah, it’s language. Why don’t you just take all punctuation out, be like the Romans?
Ezra: Sometimes we do.
Stephen: Really?
Ezra: I mean, we’re a band. Y’know? (shrugs)
Stephen: I weep for our nation. But, I do enjoy your music. Will you stick around and do one of your songs that is properly punctuated?
Ezra: We’ll see.
Stephen: All right, we’ll be right back with a performance from Vampire comma Weekend!

I always used to use an Oxford comma, but then when I started taking journalism classes in college I had to stop using it because AP style forbids it. Still, I prefer an Oxford comma over none; it’s what I was taught all throughout school (until college) and I think sentences look neater with one!

Question of the Week: Do you use an Oxford comma?

Apparently, I’m Fat and Ugly

Manda — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:20:03 +0000

Whenever Asian parents get together, it is customary for them to evaluate their kids and do a comparison. One parent’s kid will be smarter, but the others will be prettier/skinnier/more successful, etc. Usually these evaluations and comparisons occur right in front of the kids, as if the kids couldn’t understand what they are saying – oh, but they do understand; what’s more, they even expect this to occur every time Asian parents get together for a reunion!

When my mom got together with her Asian friends over the weekend, us kids braced ourselves for the inevitably degrading comparisons. A parent can compliment someone else’s kid, but they always have to put down their own child. The etiquette in this situation is surprisingly rigid, and the kids have to sit there and take it all in. It’s not that every parent believes what they say when they diss their own kid, but protocol dictates they must put down their kid after they receive a (probably over generous) compliment.

One aunty complimented me on how pretty I was. I was about to thank her for the compliment before my mother cut in and hurriedly made an argument for how not pretty, or ugly, I was. Another aunty asked me if I had lost weight, to which I truthfully replied I hadn’t. My mom once again cuts in and says I’ve gained a lot of weight, isn’t it obvious?

By the time the rounds were over, my friends and I (who are all either teenagers or in their twenties) had been reduced to a far, ugly, stupid and lazy group of kids. And I hadn’t expected anything less. Culture is culture, after all!

Rundown of New York City

Manda — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 02:53:03 +0000

There is so much to write about from my two day, one night trip to New York City that I don’t even know where to begin. The sights I saw? The food I ate? The stuff I bought? The insane amounts of walking throughout the city? (Don’t get me wrong, NYC and I are on pretty good terms. But I don’t remember the last time I’ve ever walked so much in such a short amount of time. No taxis for my family and I; it was all about walking or the subway.)

I went to the Empire State Building on my first day, which was so not worth the wait. It was a two and a half hour wait for a ten minute view of the city on the observation deck. I’ll always think of the Empire State Building as some form of mind game/mental torturing place because the line was just endless. It would snake all around separate rooms on a floor of the building, and just when you thought you’d made it to the elevator, you’d be taken up to another floor to repeat the process all over again. The observation deck was on the 86th floor and you had to take the elevator up to the 80th floor and had to wait in line again – for a mere six floors! And then there was a line to get from the 86th floor back down to the ground, which was absolutely awful because by that time I was losing my marbles and had to get out of that building. I ended up taking the stairs from the 86th to the 80th and then booking it out of the building as fast as I could. I don’t think I’ll be going up the Empire State Building again anytime soon.

I spent a good portion of my second day in NYC in Brooklyn. I had lunch at Grimaldi’s, which is billed as the best pizza in New York. I’m no expert on New York pizza, but my God, that pizza was amazing – totally worth the hour long wait in line (the line went around the block!). Topped off with delicious vanilla chocolate chunk ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and a walk back to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, I think my time spent in Brooklyn was the best part of my NYC trip.

The craziest part of my trip was the bus ride back to Delaware. Somewhere along the New Jersey Turnpike the bus totally broke down, so the driver had to pull the bus over. Twenty minutes later, the bus was in semi-working condition, which meant that it chugged along the turnpike at approximately 40mph – definitely not safe when the speed limit is 65mph and most drivers drive way faster than that. We pulled over at the next service station and waited until another bus came to pick us up, but there weren’t enough seats for everyone that was stranded. There was a lot of time to kill between buses. If you’re looking for a fun way to spend your night, I don’t recommend chilling in the truck parking area of a service station in New Jersey.

When I finally got on a bus, I got a seat in the very back in front of the bus toilet. The door handle to the bathroom was broken off so no one could get in, but one guy really had to go and couldn’t wait. He broke down the bathroom door and I had to hold the door semi-shut for him so that he could have some privacy. A small line for the bathroom formed, in which I got practice in a potential future career as a bathroom door holder. The last guy, however, managed to push the door shut so he got locked in the bathroom and he spent a good ten minutes trying to jiggle the door of the (broken) handle before he finally kicked the door down. I half expected the door to go flying down the aisle of the bus!

All in all, a very eventful trip to NYC.

Eastward Bound

Manda — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:38:28 +0000

I’m headed to the East Coast for my annual trip to visit friends and family. I’ll be hitting up Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York City. I am very excited to see my family and friends, particularly as the ones I’m going to visit are those that I only get to see once a year.

I’ll be away for a little under two weeks, but I should have at least some Internet access as I’ll be staying with friends and I’ll have my laptop with me. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to blog, however intermittently. As usual, at the very least I’ll have my iPhone with me. I expect to actually get service and 3G coverage this time, unlike my trip to South Dakota, so maybe I’ll wind up blogging from my phone.

This basically marks the beginning of about a month and a half period where I’ll be traveling and without regular access to the Internet, so my apologies for these rather boring “I’m going away and will be without steady Internet access until this date” entries. But I’ll do my best to keep you all posted on my adventures!

e-Readers: Kindle or Nook?

Manda — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:16:53 +0000

I am in the market for an e-reader.

I know, I know. When I first heard about e-readers, I was very skeptical and vowed that nothing would ever be able to replicate or replace the feeling of an actual book in hand. I still stand by that sentiment, but logically, an e-reader makes more sense in the long run, at least for me.

I travel a lot, and I always, always bring books with me. Not only do I travel, but I also move from place to place a lot. Basically, I’m almost always en route from Point A to Points B, C or D. Not having/bringing books is not an option for a bookworm like me, so I have schlepped my books to the ends of the world and back in my lifetime. However, it is not feasible for this to continue. Books are expensive (I have an aversion to libraries, but that’s a long story), books are heavy and books take up space. These are problems I’ve had with books and my lifestyle from day one.

E-readers solve most of these problems. Yes, they are expensive – certainly more expensive than any lone book. But e-reader versions of books are cheaper than print versions, and e-reader books that are in the public domain are free. They are also very light and can store over a thousand books on the device, which solves most of my book woes.

Sounds great, right? But there’s still a problem. I don’t know what type of e-reader I want. Or rather, which type of e-reader is the best fit for me.

I’ve narrowed it down to two: Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. Both look very good. I’m leaning towards the Kindle, but I don’t really have a reason for that except that it has a longer battery life. Honestly, both look really awesome and I’m completely torn as to which one to get. If I were to get the Nook, I’d be able to get it (relatively) soon. If I were to get the Kindle, I’d be debating whether or not I should wait a little longer and see when the Kindle 3 comes out before purchasing anything, as that release ought to be soon… right?

Anyway. Kindle or Nook? Anyone have experiences, stories, etc with either, or e-readers in general, to share that would be helpful?

What I’ve Learned From the 2010 World Cup

Manda — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:09:41 +0000

Seeing as today is the 2010 World Cup final (GO NETHERLANDS!), here is a hodge-podge of what I’ve learned about soccer/fútbol and the World Cup in general from the 2010 World Cup.

Soccer/fútbol players must moonlight as actors, because I’ve never seen such childish, petulant drama on a sports arena. (Granted, I don’t watch a lot of sports.)
Speaking of drama, the French national team… a theater troupe of actors if there ever was one!
Vuvuzelas annoy everyone except South Africans, apparently.
FIFA referee calls are controversial at best, downright awful at worst.

My Brazilian soccer/fútbol player name is… MANDERTO!

This pie chart sums up the rest of my lessons from the World Cup, courtesy of Cracked:

And now, all talk of soccer will go quiet on the U.S. front until the World Cup in 2014!