J's Blog!

As many know, I moved from the midwest to the west coast during my teen years. It was a difficult time for me - I left my childhood friends and school to start anew. Even then, I never really forgot my old friends... My oldest childhood friend (probably the first friend I made in America) and I shared many fun times growing up, from going over his place to hog his Nintendo, to collectively tolerating the Saturdays spent in Chinese school. Sometimes, his parents and my parents would visit each other; while the parents spoke of parently things, we children played. Then, I moved away, just when communication technology started to develop. At this time, AOL was popular, CDs were expensive, Yahoo was the main search engine, and the internet had begun its proliferation. After I moved west, I used email (at the not-so-popular usa.net domain) to try to stay in touch with friends. However, because we were young, none of us really utilized email. From when I was a child to now, I always imagined...

I. Thanksgiving Festivities This year, I had the most fulfilling Thanksgiving in a long time. It was the first time in YEARS that my entire immediate family was able to celebrate together. Because of the nature of my family's business, Baba has to travel frequently, so he is usually not in town during American holidays. From the years preceding 2009, my family (minus Baba) spent Thanksgiving on short road-trips. Looking back two years, in... ...2008 , I was in Hangzhou teaching English and had to stay on campus all day. I was a bit sad that I could not spend Thanksgiving with my fellow English teachers. However, I was extremely thankful because I ended up spending Thanksgiving with one of my colleagues/good friends from the university. We had a "dongbei" dinner with all the delicious foods of the northern region. 'Tis a warm memory that stays with me during this cool Californian winter. ...2007 , my Mom, Bro, and I went on a road trip to Yosemite, King's Canyon, a...