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!

Prelude to Shark Week

Shark week is apparently on everyone's lips. Well, modify--everyone that we know of and see on a daily basis in grad school. Our friends are strictly confined to an exclusively nerdy crowd.

Blake and I have made significant headway in this blog project. HE DESIGNED THE TITLE BANNER!!! He spent many sleepless hours (right before going to bed), shed a sea of invisible sweat, and took his Photoshop skills to a brand new level.

So a big round of applause to Shijie! It has been tested and proven that she possesses exquisitely fine taste in finding a computer-savvy husband. I simply cannot congratulate her enough. Good job.

Good job.

Switch back to first-person narrative. Blake and I went to Borders to snatch some end-of-summer reads. Because I am an awful person, I sincerely wished the discount could have been more generous. Come on, everything must go!

Also, with my newly acquired knowledge of itunes, I am starting to make an alternative wedding music playlist, tentatively featuring Weezer's "Island in the Sun" and Coldplay's "Every Teardrop is A Waterfall." I have one mild fear that Blake would dominate the ceremony with his eclectic music choice. I absolutely object to playing "Fistful of Sand" or "An Honest Mistake" on that occasion.

Summer is finally coming to an end. How do we know that in Tucson? 115 degrees of steamy hotness.

My end-of-summer resolution entails doing more leisure reading, cleaning my room, feeding Blake well, and spending quality time with friends.

I would like to think that Blake's end-of-summer resolution is to (1) love Shijie; (2) work out and sculpt those baby six-packs; (3) rest well and take mind off work when not at work; and (4) love Shijie. I know he would love to loop his resolution.

As shark week has taught us, looping and recycling old documentaries makes history, generates wide-spread interest, and elevates an unremarkable sea creature to iconic status.

Tale of two cities, in one day

I went to Phoenix today, for an interview. I just had a cliff bar and was feeling peaceful. While I was waiting for the Arizona shuttle, two rednecks got into a fight and tried to stare each other down. One almost pulled out a gun from his car. I was seriously frightened and hiding under the table. Oh well, Arizona. Please don't shoot me before I get a job.

The interview went well. The judge reminded me of so many people, all in that small frame. She read my writing samples very closely and left numerous hand-written notes all over the margin. We talked about the GPS technology, crime prevention, police stalking, privacy interest, etc. I was glad that I spent the whole semester wrestling with those issues, so at least I was somewhat prepared. She also appeared quite impatient with candidates just scratching the surface. She would go straight into the heart of every activity listed on my resume, "What did you learn from it?"

The one question that threw me off guard from her was: How do you see glass ceilings for female attorneys? I must have bitten my tongue when I heard her. There were so many instances where I felt I have been limited in an extremely uncomfortable way, like the time when the criminal law professor congratulated me for being the "only" unlikely one to write onto the law review, like the time interviewers condescendingly asked me "Don't you feel that Tucson is too small for someone like you?", like the time I received an empty promise for a recommendation letter.

Sometimes I don't know whether the barriers are there necessarily because I am a female, I am a Chinese Chinese, I have no connections in Arizona, I am too good to be true, none of the above, or all of the above. I need to eliminate too many "interfering" characteristics of mine and control too many variables to figure out: What went wrong? Am I too peculiar? Or is this your problem?

Luckily, the judge extended me the offer right after our interview. On my way back to Tucson, I looked out the window and saw the long stretch of barren, empty, flat land of Arizona. I started to picture me driving through this desert to see my babe.

And maybe, I would be greeted by a kitty cat by then.

It all began with a kiss

We decided to start this blog so that we can have a little couple project to work on amidst our busy days and lazy days. Also, I personally hope this blog can warm me up to the idea of planning a wedding in Tucson and be an outlet when I am stressed and overworked.

We came across a couple names for this blog. Blake first suggested that we should pay tribute to our red cars. In fact, an entire set of our engagement pictures are devoted to the cars. Not to mention, our relationship (or acquaintanceship) started as he drove me around in his R32, blasting some indie music and raving the engine, while I was sleeping with mouth agape in the passenger seat, apparently unimpressed.

Then, in a moment of divine inspiration, I had an idea. My train of thought went like this: we got hitched -> we're hitched hikers -> in a crusade along the unknown train of my wedding gown, or metaphorically, the milky way. So here we are now. Two Aspiring hitched-hikers' guide to the galaxy.

I love the idea. So does Blake. In fact, he loves it so much that he started this blog venture right away. An hour later, we had our first post, a gadget bar, some cool font, and a clementine color scheme (*update 07/31: back to black) .

Indeed, Blake and I are "hitched" hikers. As we often put it, we "stumbled upon" each other. We couldn't be any more different, yet we have come half way around this world to fall in love.

Last week, I got my driver's license, after one harmless fight, two failed attempts, and Blake's numerous coaching and early rises. Now I have my "multi-pass" to keep wandering and drifting, and luckily I have Blake to keep me out of trouble.

Travel safely in the unhinged universe.