busy in a good way.

december is going to be one busy month.

december 1: cambridge systematics holiday party. we started the month off with aaron's company holiday christmas party. not too shabby. it was held at the mit museum, which is pretty much your typical gallery space, but with a lot more science, instead of art. great photography pieces though. i'll admit i didn't actually take the time to walk around and really look at the exhibit, but the panoramic images all over the place of mountain ranges and whatnot were pretty cool. food was awesome. drinks were free-flowing. people were nice. fun times were had. finally got to meet the person who helped everyone connect the dots to realizing there were, in fact, two camsys/cube 3 couples in existence. still weird.

december 3: transition workload over to new malls project. deadline forthcoming.

december 7: work deadline for a student housing project in minnesota, mn.

december 7 - 9: yet another whirlwind adventure in post-sandy ny with the j-twin. likely with some christmas shopping in the mix.

december 8: get-together at the ktoad's new digs. unfortunately, won't be able to make this one due to previously mentioned whirlwind adventure.

december 8 - 15: hannukah celebrations with the magics.

december 9: hannukah/housewarming party at danny + becca's place. hopefully, i can make it back for this one.

december 13: 8pm showing of the slutcracker at the somerville theater with corey + gail.

december 14: 8:30pm showing of THE HOBBIT at the boston commons!!! i'm excited. can you tell?

december 15: 6:30pm cube 3 studio casino holiday party! time for my company's holiday party at one of the partners' house up in nh. and let me tell you, it is niiiiice. also super excited for this one. on the same night, at 8pm, is the oldenburg glögg party. glögg is apparently a mulled wine concoction that you set on fire before drinking it. also excited. hope we can make it after the cube 3 casino party.

december 20: get on a plane back to hong kong for christmas and new years!!! absolutely can't wait for all the delicious nommage that's going to be happening over those two weeks. it'll totally be worth emptying out all of my vacation time for this one trip. :) plus, it'll be aaron's first trip to hk. again, excited. :D

december 22: big kwan family gathering #1 in celebration of winter festival. jess also lands in hk this evening to join in the festivities.

december 25: big kwan family gathering #2 in celebration of christmas and grandma kwan's birthday! also, 2pm showing of the nutcracker performed by the hong kong ballet. this show has always been a holiday tradition. while everyone else shops and then congregates for pre-dinner mahjong, jess, mom and i sneak away for the nutcracker. but this year, aaron will be joining in the sneaking. and we're apparently in for quite a different show this year. the show has been revamped and redesigned to what looks like a darker telling of the story, so that'll be an interesting change to watch.

december 31: (likely) big kwan family gathering #3 for the new years countdown. new years in hk can get a little crazy every year (anyone remember the super riot in lan kwai fong that one year that got a bunch of people killed? yea. i don't want that...), so it's probably safer to celebrate and welcome the new year from the safety of our own home.

of course, there will be extra little shenanigans intermingled with those plans, but those are the big things that have been planned out in advance. then, that's it for the rest of 2012! and then...onward to new shenanigans in 2013!!!
such as:

january 5: jess, aaron and i hop back stateside and back to our lives and jobs and deadlines. le sigh...

january 11 - 13: aaron and i head back out to madison, wi for red eye! yay seeing more friends for more overnight ultimate shenanigans!!!

who has two thumbs and is excited? this moi. :)

who let me become an adult?!

so this may have been a slow realization on my part, but who the hell let me become an adult?!

seriously. i gradually came to the realization the other night that, pretty much since i started my job, i have now been paying my own way through life. obviously, there was some residual help from my parents just until i got my feet under me and could actually get on my way, but otherwise, everyday finances like rent, bills, shopping allowance when i've felt the need for it has all come from my own pocket. what?!

what happened to the days of my mom checking in every semester to make sure i had enough money for food?? what happened to the begrudging process of having to contact my parents consistently throughout the school year to inform them that they would once again have to help me shell out cash to pay for more even more art supplies and textbooks? what did i mean i needed even more money for more cardboard and hot glue sticks?!

then there are the ultimate expenses, aka. the wonderful club sports budget at cmu. oh, you guys are driving to god-knows-where for a tournament? here, just use the school club sports budget. oh, the next tournament bid is $375? club sports budget. though some ultimate funding did come from the parents: oh, your cleats have blown out halfway through the season and you need to make an emergency run to get new ones? yea, turns out no one told me that the days of "...oh, that's okay. thanks for letting me know. just put it on my card..." are over.

i don't actually remember the last time i asked for pocket money because i wanted to go to the mall with my friends on the weekend. maybe high school? college was more a semester-long budget situation for daily necessities. what i got was what needed to last until i went home over christmas. anything shopping money or cash for non-essentials was earned from any on-campus jobs i could scrape up. the more i think abut it, i actually approve of and appreciate that whole situation. it was a smoother way to transition me into paying for my own extraneous shit without immediately dumping me into the deep end of dealing with all of the financials that being a college kid living off campus with a certain level of freedom entailed, which surely would have given me a heart attack five times over...per year of college. i wonder if there was a record for the most heart attacks endured within any given period of time. i bet i could've beaten it. thank god i didn't have to do that. i'm pretty sure i came close quite a few times and that was enough for me.

now, instead of checking in with the parents, the situation is more base on the concept of "let me check with my bank account". oh, you'd like a new pair of shoes? let's check to make sure your bank account is having a good day first. oh, you need to pay rent soon? better make sure your bank account is happy with more of that whole "getting paid" business. these happy levels predictably now fluctuate on a two-week schedule defined by every other thursday, as my personal financials slowly work their way up to "real person status".

the realization that this transition had happened pretty much came when i was time to buy plane tickets to fly back to hong kong for christmas. after chatting with jess for awhile, it came up that i felt bad that even after i had graduated and started my new job, our parents were still paying for my plane tickets home. my ever-so-level-headed sister then smartly pointed out that even though mama and papa kwan were covering the $1750 for roundtrip tickets between boston and hong kong, they were, in fact, no longer shelling out approx. $50,000/year for school now that i had finally graduated from my five-year program with a professional degree. so really, i cut down on my expenses for them by a solid $48,000. i'll take it! the goal now is to hopefully be in decent enough shape next year to be able to afford my own plane ticket. y'know, on top of that extraneous stuff i had previously mentioned that i plan on being able to purchase with my big-person money.

going christmas shopping today, i had a moment of "oooh...i want this! should i get this?...", in response to which, i got the somewhat standard answer of, "...::shrug::...it's your money."

it is my money.

that. is. terrifying.

"oh, you're going out for brunch?...yea, that one's on you too."

day 3: merry christmas!!! :)

days in hk: 3

# of dimsum meals: 3

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 2

# of holiday movies watched: 2 (deck the halls, the holiday)

yet another morning of dimsum with the family. then, as per tradition, went to the matinee performance of the nutcracker at the hong kong cultural centre.

had a super tasty dinner for grandma's birthday. mmm...many photos were taken, dishes were had, comas were induced.

happy 82nd birthday, grandma! :)

[sidenote: blogger, i really hate your blog formatting sometimes. it's messed up.]

day 2: recap.

days in hk: 2

# of dimsum meals: 2

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 1

# of holiday movies watched: 2 (deck the halls, the holiday)

as a sidenote, i finally have a camera charger, so photos should be coming along with the next posts. :)

day 1: xmas break in hong kong.

# of dimsum meals: 1

# of times i've almost accidentally gotten into the wrong side of the car: 1

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 1

# of weirdass christmas trees: 2 (1 toy story themed, 1 ferrero rocher themed)

this place is weird.

junk boats and english boys.

week one in hong kong complete.

its been so full of delicious food, its kinda ridiculous. no joke. i weighed myself within a few days of coming home and i had gained five pounds. disgusting, right?

so, from the beginning. left boston on dec. 22nd. got to newark and before finding out my connecting flight to hk had been delayed for 11 hours. all because of a clogged toilet. no, seriously. first we got delayed until 6pm, from 3:30pm, so that they could figure out which toilet was messed up and fix it. then, according to regulation, if a long-haul flight is delayed by more than two hours, the airline is obligated to allow the crew to go home and sleep for eight hours. and this flight didn't have a back up crew. hence, passengers were stuck at the gate until the crew had gotten their rest. :P lame. and i would've killed time by blogging this while i was stuck curled up at the terminal, but my dumbass packed all of my chargers and powercords and chargers in my checked baggage, which the airline wasn't about to give us access to. ass.

i guess, at least we weren't caught in this blizzard business. that would've sucked. more.

at 2:15am, the flight finally got their act together and got the hell out of newark. i immediately jump on the personal tv system, play a couple of games, and then what do i find??..

 

yaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!! :D

so i finally get in to hk at 7:15am on christmas eve. get home. shower. and get an early christmas present!!! it's an ipad!!!!!!! then jess got me despicable me + a leather ladybug penholder. its super cute and made from recycled leather. yaaaayyyyy!!!

my christmas presents from 2010!!! :D

nomnoms!!!

25th ::

christmas day + grandma's birthday! more delicious noms. big family dinner. the whole shindig.

there really isn't anything quite like hk cakes...mmm...

g-ma and the grandkids sans one. :)

then, other than eating dimsum everyday for the first few days [read: DELICIOUS.], we had hotpot. more deliciousness! jess and i are slowly checking all the various foods we wanted to have when we came back off our lists.

27th-28th ::

we and the extended family spent a couple days wandering around macau.

one week into the trip back to hk, we're finally having some chillaxing time. :)

i still need to find some time to head out for a site visit. but i still have time. 

one more week to go. :D

<3

save up all the days.

2 weeks left.

3 days of class.

1 studio project to finish.

2 community meetings to deal with.

1 arch. history paper to review.

6 days until resubmission.

1 final issues exam to take.
12 days until said final.

1 issues project to finish up.
11 days until its due.

1 arch. history exam to TA.
20+ hours of grading.
200+ cash moneyz to collect.

1 udm project to complete.

1 rockapella concert to attend.

boomtown. 

let's do this.

and it's a common misconception, but true without exception.

baller christmas / new years traditions that go on in the kwan household :
- watching Home Alone 1 + 2 (on vhs if possible, and then advancing technology for every copy not found thereafter)
- watching Love, Actually
- watching the Nutcracker ballet
- delicious chinese food
- watching some random, unrelated movie on new years eve and then only belatedly realizing that we have, yet again, missed the countdown into the new year
- delicious chinese desserts

dreidel, dreidel, dreidel! i made it out of clay!

winter break plans:
dec. 11th - 18th - BOSTON (Chez Shavit)
dec. 11th - 18th - HAPPY HANNUKAH!!! :)
dec. 18th - jan. 4th - HONG KONG (Chez Moi)
dec. 25th - MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :)
jan. 1st - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)
jan. 4th - 10th - BOSTON (Chez Magil)
jan. 10th - back to PITTSBURGH 

meet dug. i have just met him. and i love him. :)

thank you, B! <3