Innocent Flirtation?

What do you do when the love of your life flirts with someone right in front of you? What I did was grinned and bore it and came home to vent in my blog. I know what you're thinking, "Bryan? He doesn't seem like the type to do something like that!" Well, you're absolutely right! It was Noah!! Tonight we were at my parents house and Noah was playing ball with his cousins. Aunt Lydia (names have been changed to protect the innocent) came downstairs and sat next to me on the couch while I held her cute little baby. Noah approached us and at first we thought he was a little jealous until I noticed he was actually approaching Aunt Lydia. He proceeded to walk back and forth between playing ball and Aunt Lydia and at times even presented her the ball he had so difficultly acquired from his older cousins. While at play he would also sneak glances over at Aunt Lydia as if to see if she was watching his great athletic prowess. When Aunt Lydia brought her sleepy baby upstairs, he stopped playing ball and tried to follow her upstairs. Noah is 14.5 months old! How could this start so early?!? I thought I would have a few more years as the apple of his eyes as he is mine. I spend day and night catering to his every want and he has fallen in love with another woman. Sigh...all I can say is my heart is broken into a million pieces and can never be mended.

USA vs. China

January 12, 2009 marks 30 years since I first step foot in America. I immigrated here at the age of 3 so I have no memories of Taiwan before that. Though I visited every 2 years or so I didn't really have a deep connection with the country. That is until I was in Taiwan during the big earthquake on 9/21/99. Buildings collapsed, people trapped, thousands died, rescuers arrived from all over the world and everywhere on the streets people were banded together helping and supporting one another. That's when I had an overwhelming feeling of "Wow, these are my people". Corny eh? Well, since then, tragedy over, people healed, life went on and Taiwan is thousands of ocean miles away. The connection slowly fades away. Bryan on the other hand came to America when he was 16 years old. He tells me that he could never live in Hong Kong again. He's used to living in larger homes, driving to work and non-humid weather. But that doesn't change his deep connection to his roots. It was never so prevalent until we watched the Olympics together and I realized we were rooting for different teams! That brings on a slew of introspective questions of why I consider myself first a Chinese and second an American, but I still hope that the Chinese gymnastics team gets eliminated for having underaged athletes. Could it be because I was conditioned at an early age to pledge my allegience to the American flag every day at school? Too many questions to be discussed in this blog. But it does make me wonder, "At what age do you become connected to your country?"

CLICK!

A new strategy...

I just figured out how to check how much money I made so far from Adsense. A whole $1.31! That's 4 total clicks! Adsense pays every time you reach $100 in earnings. At this point, I won't be paid until Noah graduates from college! Come on people, Bryan's about to shut down my blog. He didn't like me talking about my small and saggies in the last post. Click if you like the post, click if you're bored, click if "you threw up a little in your mouth". Doesn't matter, just CLICK! By the way, I'm not allowed to "encourage" anyone to do this under their terms and conditions so I'm not encouraging you. I'm TELLING you. GO DO IT!

Pregnancy - Small & Saggy

Some people think that being pregnant is beautiful. I was NOT one of the beautiful ones. In fact, every time my grandma saw me when I was pregnant she said "You're uglier, you must be having a boy". She was right. She knew before the doctors knew. Perhaps one of the most surprising physical change was the changes to my boobs. Almost immediately after I got pregnant they got bigger. They got so heavy that it was painful so I had to wear a sports bra 24/7. And now that Noah has stopped breastfeeding I noticed that they shrunk! Yes, they're smaller than what I started with!!! Now smaller is not all that bad, but small AND saggy! Come on now, give me a break! Now tell me, what's so beautiful about that?

Unhappy New Years Deja Vu

Bryan woke up today with dizziness and the chills and went straight back to bed only to wake up with a bad case of the runs. Noah has been fussy and clingy all day and even threw up part of his lunch. I was OK until this evening when I started feeling nauseous and had a little diarrhea as well. I went to bed early and woke up at 3am trying to rid myself of some of this unpleasantness, i.e., toilet time. While I was on the toilet I thought of the last time I felt like this was when I went to Hong Kong with my dad about 15 years ago for some holiday shopping. It was New Year's Eve and we headed out on Tsim Sha Tsui to join the festivities. Were we in for a big surprise. New Years Eve in Tsim Sha Tsui consists of tens of thousands of people packed like sardines in the streets. I heard one year that 20+ people were trampled to death during New Year's Eve in Hong Kong. As we ventured out into the night I suddenly felt ill. Cold sweat and chills. I felt so sick that I asked my dad if we could take a taxi back to the hotel (bear in mind that I could see the hotel from where I was standing). But the motor traffic in the streets were at a standstill. So we headed by foot among the endless crowd back to the hotel. As we inched our way to the hotel, my dad decided that I should have some dinner - Pei Tan Pork Porridge - to help me feel better. When we got back to the room my dad drew a nice hot bath for me. I went to the bathroom, had some diarrhea and was feeling a little better. So I stepped into the tub and as the water reached my chest I felt a sudden urge to puke. I jumped out, headed for the sink and the porridge shot out of my mouth so forcefully that it came out through my nose as well. To this day I can remember the oily smell of porridge in my nostrils. When I woke up the next morning I wasn't feeling up to go shopping again. (Yes! I felt that sick!) But my dad insisted because he's such a wonderful dad and wanted me to spend my time in Hong Kong acquiring as many material things as possible! As we started shopping the illness completely subsided and by the end of the day it was as if nothing had happened. The culprit to all this unhappiness during the New Years? I suspect food poisoning. Lessons learned? Don't take a hot bath if you feel like puking and shopping cures all ailments. I think I'll tell Bryan when he wakes up that we NEED to go shopping today.

Making Money

Since I became a full time mother, I spend my days taking care of Noah and my nights surfing the web while he sleeps next to me. I shop over the Internet, keep up on friends' blogs, check email, Facebook and YouTube. Bryan seems to disapprove of these activities especially what he considers wasting my time on YouTube. I tried to explain to him that I don't get to do any of these things in the daytime and it's practically the only connection I have to the outside world. Well today he came into my room and asked me what I was doing. I told him that I started a blog yesterday and I discovered by adding AdSense I can make some money whenever someone clicks on an ad on my blog. He actually said "Good Job". I guess writing a blog is better than being on YouTube and making money while I'm doing it makes it worthwhile. When I had a job I would sometimes think of money making opportunities during my commute. Like everyone else, I would like to retire early and still have money coming in. One great idea is making money off of royalties. That means I can do something once and continue to get paid for the rest of my life!!! How great is that?!?! The first thing that comes to mind is writing a book but I am NOT a good writer. I'm not eloquent or imaginative enough to do a job like that. I could take photos and sell them as postcards or greeting cards but that means I need to have some photography skills. I could write travel guides but I think that would require too much research and thought that it would take the fun out of travelling for me. You see my problem? So for now, being a full time mother and not financially contributing to the family, please click on an ad to the right if it appeals to you when you visit my blog. That being said, please come visit my blog often so that Bryan will get off my back about being on the internet.

GO CLICK ON THE AD RIGHT NOW!!
Baby needs some diapers!!

Je-Sick-Ah

Well I just spent wayyy too much time selecting a memorable name for my first blog. I know I'm asking for it by naming it Je-Sick-Ah but you can't say it's not memorable. That reminds me of how my name came to be. A little history lesson for those of you who didn't know me in grade school. My name was Ja-Wai until I was 10 years old and I absolutely hated it. Aside from all the teasing I got from mean kids such as David, (hahaha, he'll probably never read this but this is my little way of seeking revenge for scarring my childhood) I also dreaded having substitute teachers. They always slaughtered my name during role call making all the kids laugh at me. So when I was in 5th grade I had the opportunity to change my name when I became a naturalized citizen. I had about 10 minutes to chose my new name. My mother and I decided that I should stick with a name that starts with "J". My mother suggested "Jacqueline" (after Jacqueline Kennedy) but being 10 years old at the time and not knowing much of anything including who Jackie Kennedy was I thought it sounded too "ethnic". Like Jakwanda, Janiqua...hahaha boy was I stupid. Well when I went home with my new name it caused more trouble than Ja-Wai! All my Chinese aunts criticized it saying it sounds too much like "Jezebel". That's all I heard for years. They would see me, say my new name and scoff. Jeeze, as if I could change it again. Now after 20 or so years I do not like my name too much. Must be because of all the references to Jezebel but I do like it better than Ja-Wai! No regrets there.

Happy New Years Everyone. Wishing you all the best in 2009!