Hello! Day Five since China, which was really awesome even if my mom had her moments and pollution/smoking/spitting is disgusting. I got to see lots of different places, some of which was really eye-opening and potentially life-changing, and saw people I've missed. And ate way too much good food. I've never really experienced a big family at all; I mean, it's just me and my dad most of the time, and even when my mom's side comes over, it's usually just for Christmas dinner or something, nothing protracted that forces us to go past small talk and formalities. But being in China with all of my family from both sides for a relatively extended period of time was really different. All my aunts, one uncle, my grandparents, my mom, my cousin, and I all in the house was a bit chaotic, mostly from the three sisters squabbling (they never will grow up, I think), but it was a different environment than what I'm used to. And being in Beijing with both sides of the family (mostly dad's) was also fun, being spoilt by grandma and everyone else. I felt for the first time that it's nice being related to all of these people, that family ties are solid. But it was also really saddening to think about. On my dad's side especially, all the relatives that I'm close with are older, my various grandparents and lots of aunts and uncles. I barely have any cousins, and I haven't spoken to any of them in years. One of my aunts has a three-year-old daughter that I've never met and probably doesn't even know I exist. I realized that in 10 years, I might not have a "home" to go back to there, something that I've always taken for granted.

There is a very large, odd-shaped insect flying over my head. It will be destroyed. MOTHAMON PART 2

Been hanging out with people since I've gotten back. Dad was in Minneapolis for a couple days after I got back, so I took advantage of the time to go gallivanting (excellent word, btw) about with friends. Shayne and Vicki came over Monday. Originally, I'd asked Shayne to come over because I thought Vicki had to work, but her boss all of a sudden gave her a day off, so obviously we had to get together to watch MCFLY!!! (WE STILL HAVEN'T SEEN THE DOCUMENTARY!!) Poor Shayne. So I told him to come later, but with our hysterical screaming and constant rewinding to see Danny's cute faces over again, we didn't get through all of it, so Shayne had to witness some of our hysteria. We decided against watching the documentary partly because we didn't want to torture Shayne more, but mostly because we didn't want him to judge us for liking McFly when he saw their insane antics. :) So we watched "The Fellowship of the Ring" instead, which Vicki decided she wanted to try and ruin. :)
"She knows this because she's an Elf! Elves know everything and always look pretty and their hair never gets messed up." So the phrase of the day became: "It's because he's an Elf." And apparently Vicki and I are joined at the brain (a scary thought) and together make one Elf. She got the pretty hair and I got the arrogance and somewhere in between we lost the grace. :D They stayed for dinner, and Vicki, of course, didn't eat much. Haha. No mac and cheese!

Afterwards, Andy came over and we went to.. Starbucks, of course. I got a kids' hot chocolate and Andy an apple cider drink thing. I didn't think they'd let me have the kids' size, but apparently they do. Yay! And it's called a short, which was an original Starbucks size before they "bought into consumerism." Yay for Andy's knowledge of Starbucks trivia. We sat and talked and then decided to hide from the cold by going to my dad's house. Well, we got in the car and wanted to be spontaneous since we were free, uncontrolled, and mobile. But we kind of failed. We went through a list of places to go and realized that Chino Hills really is rather boring (but lovely!) and that we were really bad at spontaneity. So we went back to my dad's house and were spontaneous without trying! Andy went for my piano because his is gone forever to his little cousin's, and we spent the next hour or two singing along to one of us attempting to play the score to Broadway songs. I think we should stick to Phantom, since I know how to play it. Rent is hard, btw. And even if "I Could Have Danced All Night" looks easy, you always end up with the person singing trying to hold "danceeeeeeeeddd" for a really long time while you attempt to figure out the next chord. But it was lots of fun!! I miss singing, especially with Andy. It was so nice to hear his voice again... and he makes a really sexy Phantom! Andy seems always to get into compromising situations with young girls, such as coming back to my empty, unsupervised house at midnight... oh well. :)

The next day, I drove off to Santa Ana to pick up the automobile-deprived Sarah, and we wandered around Santa Ana aimlessly, which was still fun. :) She showed me Main Place mall, and we walked from one end to the other (and saw the Baginskis randomly) making random comments at stores. Sarah decided that she was a tour guide.
"This is an ad for 'The Time Traveler's Wife.'"
"Yes, thank you. I didn't notice. Are you a tour guide or something?"
"Yes!"
"But you're not walking backwards..."
"I can't. I'd run into someone or something."
"Well then you can't be a real tour guide."
"Shut up, woman! I'm guiding you. Therefore, I'm a tour guide."
We got candy from See's (even though I left my lollipop on the counter and then was too embarrassed to go back and get it) and avoided my "favourite" lingerie stores, and then decided that we were nerds and wanted to go to the bookstore. We drove to Barnes & Nobles, had coffee, and spent way too much time sitting in the middle of an aisle recommending books to each other. Sarah DRAGGED me to go look at cookbooks, where she decided that she was going to be a Greek woman named Vefa... wtf. And then mooned over cupcakes for another half hour before we went back downstairs and spent too long looking at planners, calendars (like old women), and journals. We're really boring. Right when we were heading out, we glanced at the bargain section and found the most amazing, ridiculous book in the history of the world. Sarah decided then and there that we had to buy it and read it aloud. I mean... it said things like, "I lurrvvee Hamburger-a-gogo Land." What does that even mean!?!? After embarrassing ourselves by reading it in the Barnes & Nobles (people kept staring at us), we bought it (and Sarah made me go pay because she was too embarrassed), and drove to Orange Circle where we read it aloud to each other (people kept staring at us again). It was the most ridiculous thing ever.. it actually made my head hurt. I had to go though, which made us both very sad. Stupid Santa Ana has to be so far away... and Sarah has to not have a car. :(

This morning, I got up bright and early and went to Jen's house. We had planned on washing our cars, which is really fun even if it doesn't sound like it. When I got there, her stepdad asked her to bake him something so he could take it to some event later that day, so Jen taught me how to bake cookies for the first time in my life. Double chocolate chip. Yummy! I fail at measuring things, btw... I've never seen these teaspoon, tablespoon things that you have!! White people create such funny measuring things... we kind of just estimate with our chopsticks and spoons.. they're so precise. Maybe this is why Chinese people don't bake. But I survived! I just ended up putting a little too much flour in it... whoops. But I measured the baking soda and the salt and the chocolate chips properly!! Be proud!! :D And they were yummy when they came out!! I also had some of the cheesecake that she made yesterday. Jen is Master Baker Extraordinaire. We then went out to wash our cars... okay, so I haven't washed my car like... ever... and it was REALLY filthy. I felt so accomplished seeing all that dirt coming off. For the first time, Jen and I had pride in our cars. We almost understood why men go and wax their cars all the time. Almost. Yay for shiny cars! Even if my dad apparently can't tell the difference... whatever..
It made me realize that it doesn't really matter what you do exactly. You can have fun doing just about anything, from silly to serious, including even chores. It just matters who you're doing it with. Yay for friends. :)