Viva La Vida Ebay

I came back from my flippy-floppy vacation on the Illinois River with Daddy and Blake. I had many hillbilly moments. I accomplished feathering myself with five kinds of dog hair as part of my beach outfit, fell asleep with my face buried under Wills and Trust on a speed boat, and featured Asian carps in my dreams as they vigorously banged themselves against the boat at night.

All in all, everyone harvested good memories: daddy got to eat hearty Midwestern steak, Blake got to completely block me out of his fantasy Foundation world, and I got to roll on the boundless super king-size bed in true ecstasy.

Then I came home, nervous to find out that I had two items awaiting. One was a citation ticket for not displaying my parking permit. The other was a package notice in my mailbox.

The ticket turned out to be a false alarm. But the package was just the beginning of a social experiment, a psychological warfare.

Dare you buy a wedding dress on Ebay?

For me, the apparent answer is yes, against all odds and skeptics. I am ruthless about the budget, which ironically I have no idea of how much or how little. But I love a firm handshake of camaraderie after a fierce and show-no-mercy bargain. When Blake saw me grinning sheepishly or attempting to make out an awkward puppy face, he knew that I was concocting wacky shenanigans, which always include driving wedding cost to rock bottom, the sweat-shop style.

My grand wedding scheme entails:

People, bring your own desert to the reception.

Also chair cover.

And write yourself a custom-design invitation.

And don't forget to prepare a show-worthy talent. Don't invite yourself if you haven't already got one.

. . .

Oops, I digressed, as usual. So, back to the gist of this post. I first discovered the BCBG bridal series a couple months ago in my usual habit of wee hour online-shopping. I was exploding with joy when I found out that a number of gowns were a part of the annual sale. So I sent links of potential dresses to Mommy, whose concise and insightful feedback ("ugly" "clown" "wrong" "manly") helped me eliminate all but one.

But I did have some issues with the survivor of my mom's firing squad ("survivor dress"): it had a deep-V cut in the back. Maybe I should wear a Winnie the Pooh shirt underneath to add some wholesomeness?

Regardless, the survivor dress was $124. After weeks of patience, I welcomed the Fourth of July with a further discount of 20% and holiday free shipping. I was only a click away from placing the order (and getting done with the gown-shopping), except that I was completely clueless about my size. I shuddered at the fine print:"no return for all final sales."

I dragged Blake to the only BCBG store in town. I shamelessly tried on every single cocktail and full-length gown and a number of unrelated items that I could find on the rack (pant suit and pencil skirt for wedding anyone?). Three hours later, I emerged out of the store triumphantly, empty-handed yet with a renewed understanding of my measurement inside and out. Blake, for some reason, was tilting his hat to the side and rushing out of the store in an uncharacteristically fast strut.

Meanwhile, I killed the survivor dress in my mind, partly because having a Winnie the Pooh dipping his finger in the honey jar and smiling through my back was slightly disturbing, and partly because I did not see the gown in the store to test my theory. However, I did find a replacement. In my prolonged changing/searching/self-appreciating session, I accidentally tried on a dress that was quite decent. In my dictionary, "quite decent" is defined as "actually very nice but with an unholy price tag."

Too bad.

But I have always been a woman of virtue: a patient, persevered, impulsive, and tenacious shopper. Recently, I had claimed and returned my bounty from Urban Outfitters' sale massacres (ask Blake for funny stories). And here I am again, who must be a Chinese offshoot of the Amazon wonder woman, lurking on Ebay for months and shooting competing bidders with my lethal stare.

If Ebay is a battlefield, then I have to be a sniper-in-training. I passed the security (such a pain to link my account to Paypal!), evaluated the enemy's supply (plenty of reviews to read!), calculated the risk of casualty (ugh...no return, bummer!), and waited for an ambush (WHERE ARE YOU MY PERFECTLY CHEAP DRESS?!!!).

Finally a week ago, I found the dress (called BCBG Matilde), studied the sellers, waited for the right timing, and snatched the last one in stock.

My heart was racing and my head was spinning. Man, I did not know Ebaying could be so nerve-wrecking. It happened so fast, just like a dream. I need an oxygen mask next time.

Now, I am holding the dress close to my chest, flaunting my first-and-will-never-be-the-last Ebay purchase to Blake and Daddy. I am deeply grateful that I no longer need to join those Dash to Your Dress sales and become an inevitable victim of bridal violence.

Frankly I need no fancy dress to impress anyone. Blake, in his absent-minded eyes, would always call me beautiful even if I wrap myself in bed linen and show up with an enormous cow lick.

But I still need a good deal to make the frugalista in me happy.

Then I got an anxious text message from Mommy.

"Did you nail it? Is the seller a crook?"

ENFP & ISTJ

Another leadership conference. This time for Optics and Photonics students in San Diego. Haven't I been through enough of these already? I had already dozed off at least once during the endless powerpoint slides when the speaker brought up this as the summary slide to her 3-hr presentation:


at that moment I realized that I've probably learned all I can ever learn from lectures on leadership and personalities. The line "always something new" at the bottom right of the slide is antithetical. I've gone around the loop of leadership psychology and now the film is starting over again.

If you've gone to enough team-building exercises, you'll eventually come across the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) shown in the picture. You answer some questions, and it gives you a personality profile defined by 4 letters representing 4 characteristic categories of how you interact with the world and other people:

1. Where we get our energy
Extrovert (E) or Introvert (I)
2. How we interpret information
Intuition (N) or Sensing (S)
3. How we make decisions
Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
4. Orientation to the outer world
Perceiving (P) or Judging (J)

Years ago when I was a resident assistant, I took the test. I'm an ENFP. Shijie just took the test during her training as a resident assistant. She is an ISTJ. We're total opposites. The perfect pair of counterparts you may ask? Well, we both weren't particularly surprised.

From Wikipedia:
"ENFPs are Champions who are good at motivating. They are initiators of change, keenly perceptive of possibilities. They energize and stimulate others through their contagious enthusiasm."
"ISTJs are Inspectors who are good at certifiying. They thrive on organization. They keep their lives and environments well-regulated. They bring painstaking attention to detail in their work and will not rest until a job is well completed."

This assessment may not be totally accurate, but we do see this all the time. I get our research group and investors motivated at work, and she interprets all sorts of regulation in her many roles in the law field. I'm usually the motivator behind going somewhere or doing something different, and she's the rational person keeping us from spending too much money on silly things (I swear I'm getting better) or spending too much time on perfecting near-meaningless designs or reports.

One of our good friends Nelson is an ENTJ. We find it funny that he carries strong characteristics of each of us, and in nearly half-&-half proportions as described in the personality profile.

Another thing this test gives is a listing of most and least likely jobs someone of your personality type would be well suited for. Among the least likely jobs for my type: Scientist. Either I strongly disagree with that, or I hope I'm the exception.

Smell the roses

Our first Valentine's was so low-key that it was almost sketchy. Totally my fault. I issued Blake a serious prior warning weeks ahead of time that I desired no grand romantic gestures on that very day. No flowers. No candle-lit dinner. No exotic chocolate. And no reservation.

Who is this PERSON?!

A. Alien.

B. Hater.

C. Dunno. Don't think I know her.

Or maybe-just maybe-because I was trying to rebel against consumerism (what?). I think the Valentine's is yet another pretext to force people to spend beyond their means. While forbidding Blake to pledge allegiance to the over-spending national anthem, I ran a research on the popular restaurants in town. Not only were they all booked out as if it were a time of Soviet food rationing, but also the prix fixe menu was a big fat crime against humanities.

In my rare moments, I started to sympathize with the male population, the unsung slaves who are supposed to pick up the bill whenever wherever, shower girls with attention and gifts, and go all out for the short-lived romance on steroid.

No thanks. I prefer to preserve the financial sanity of my man on a grad school budget. Even just for a day.

Instead, we watched the winter Olympics and ate frozen dumplings. Out of excruciating self-restraint, Blake unveiled a modest but lovely gift: a grey H&M beanie hauled from Minnesota.

I wore that beanie more than any other hat I have ever owned. The last time I was spotted with that item was in April. Tucson April.

Since this boy entered my life, every day has become a fiesta. He is indeed a mountain of light, a fountain of inspiration, illuminating and hydrating my dull, foreign, overly academic existence.

Like the time he hand picked a tube of bath bombs when he was in a solar conference in Vegas.

Like the time he ordered The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom so that I could have a fun read while he was away in Chile.

Like the time he taught me how to play tennis and picked up the scattering uncaught balls after a lazy and very unprofessional me.

Like the time he risked his life teaching me how to drive and texted me on my first day of navigating my way in this world on a vehicle, alone.

Like the time he took me to see the documentary Babies and hanged in there as the only ♂, like a champ.

Like the time he adjusted the helmet for me before goat-carting. (*Update: no correction. You say tomato. I say tomahto.)

Like the time he found 25 versions of Carol of the Bells because I told him I loved this song.

Like the time he brought me to the woods he grew up in and walked down the path he remembered.

Like the time he cut his hair, my dad's hair, and then my hair.

Like the time he made me barbeque for dinner and then we watched lots and lots of Steven Colbert together.

And just like today, he bought home a bundle of delight and told me to smell the roses so that I will never ever have nightmares about the wedding.

Oh gosh, I love this man. Very very much so.

I promise I will refrain from clicking on living horrors called over-the-top wedding blogs from now on.

Certainty

When I was in middle school, I secretly wished to become a fashion model and live a life of glamor. But my short Asian genes and my startling good appetite doomed my dream to strut down the runway.

In college, I thought about working in the Wall Street one day, suit in suit out. I trekked all the way to the business school to pick up the freshly printed The Wall Street Journal, practiced mock interview questions with a financier wannabe, and tried to pad my resume with more As in econ courses. I would like to be a self-sufficient city girl and need no man in my life. After a total disaster interview in NYC, I was deeply humiliated and realized that I did not want this life as badly as everyone around me. For too long, I had blindly followed other people's path, mistaking their ambition for mine.

Then I came to law school, still not knowing whether this would be the right move for me. I met a bubbly guy who occasionally acted a bit overly friendly but can be easily forgiven because he happened to be dashingly cute in my biased opinion. He certainly had made the right move by casually asking me out when he was scrubbing dishes over the loud sound of splashing water. He later tried to make a point that saying "I love you" without looking at the love interest makes everything much more dramatic. This novel theory-like anything else he knew of relationships-came from an SNL skit, an endless source of heartfelt advices for dysfunctional couples.

Our first summer together was sometimes challenging. He moved out of La Aldea so that he could hang out with his manly friends, paint his room in a suspiciously brothel color, and openly play with fire, on a grill. He started to work for a professor whose headshot appeared at the Tucson International Airport. He got to order expensive solar cells or burn money all under the grand name of research. He became really good at what he was doing and was proud of it.

I, on the other hand, was browsing food blogs which always ended up crashing the office computer with only a floppy disk drive. I was worried about finding a paying legal job and starting my second year in law school. I missed a couple deadlines for career fairs. The desert heat was taking a toll on my mane and every day, I saw mass casualties on the floor.

And like every good Chinese woman, when I got frustrated, I wanted to get married, even though neither of us was ready at that time.

So the question is, how could we reach a consensus on a matter of such gravity as marriage within a year? Not that we have become more emotionally mature. I would still throw an adult tantrum and protest by not making dinner from time to time. Blake would respond by burying his head in Reddit posts like an ostrich in the sand. In fact, he is now on a very stupid game called QWOP, thanks to Reddit (for mentally debilitating details, see http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html).

But I am glad that he is by my side, in all the good times and bad times. Before he masters the QWOP hand-arm-thigh-shin-feet-hip coordination by keyboard, he would fall heads over heels for me.

Finally, there is some certainty in life!