Lazy Girls Blog from Bed

Beach BBQ. good idea. good times. late night swimming, bananas and chocolate, nearly getting in a fight with locals who outnumbered us 3 to 1..... noodle salad.

Today I had a group meeting that lasted for 4 hours. On a Sunday! When the sun was shining! It was dreadful. But we did finish our project which was nice.

The A-Team + Team Wei Lun had a pizza party on the roof tonight. It was glorious. I've missed pizza.

I'm so tired right now, and laaaazy. I just discovered I can lay flat on my back and put my laptop on my abdomen and still type easily. I may never get out of bed again. Previously the only reason to sit up was to type, and once you're sitting up you may as well stand, go to class, make friends, eat, to laundry, etc. Without the sitting, all that is too much work. Send food, I'll be here in bed.

Abby

Life is so endlessly hard!

Yesterday's bad luck was not turned by my blogging. We went out and had fun, but Kelly and I wound up babysitting, which is never much fun. We did drink free all night though, so that was clever.

Today we went dress shopping for tomboy Kel, which was wicked fun. We got her this sexy black dress with silver beads on a plunging neckline and an open back. She wore it to the orchestra tonight with my prom shoes and dangley earrings. She looked so hot, I was all teared up with pride for her girlyness. Now the prayer is that she doesn't break her ankles in my 3.5inch heels and have to end the night in the ER.

We shopped in TST and had the most epic trip home ever. MTR station was packed with 5:00 traffic and when we got to central we had to wait a record 35 minutes for a bus. And it was raining. So there was no chance of getting a taxi. By the time we got to the dorm Kelly should've been meeting the boys. Needless to say, Cinderella was a bit late. Oh well.

I did a great job standing up my Gender Diversity group as well. I told them that Friday night at 5 was really inconvenient for me and I'd be late if I made it at all. At 6 Jane texted me to meet them at the Library. I never went (I was still dressing Kelly at 7) but they cancelled on my for the second time last night and rescheduled without checking with me, so I don't really feel that badly. Plus I already took extra pics and emailed them to Cage and acted as the messenger between teh rest of them, so I feel I've been pulling more than my own weight up until now.

In other news, Seattle Mike promised he'd hang out with the A-Team thursday, friday and saturday- he ditched us for schoolwork yesterday, and tonight is headed for a beach party in Lantau in the rain. Jerk.

Tomorrow night we're having a bbq on the beach (if it ever stops raining) so that willbe fun. Thomas the sketchy Italian planned it so it should be entertaining. He is so precious.

Ok enough rambling-
Abby

Gender Diversity Projects

check out some of the posters from my Gender Diversity Class:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=w7khfmi.6ahzfehm&x=0&y=3hf5l

mine soon to come.

its not alllll bad...

to be fair (and to steal a harjism) some good things did happen today.

• Dr. Lau mentioned Clemson, apparently we have the brother robot to one of HKU's
• Dr. Lau rescheduled our Thursday class and offered to bring snacks next time
• Kelly and I coined the phrase "I'll detune your servo"
• I clattered all over Hong Kong in my new shoes and got no new blisters (old ones are still intact of course)
• When I went to Wellcome I got a mini chocolate croissant which was delicious
• I'm still riding the high of getting a 91% on my canto test
• I'm having dinner with the girls on Kelly's hall who are hilarious

So life is survivable. Sort of.
:) abby moodswing

i suck at life.

today pretty much sucked

• kelly and i almost died on the minibus. we got cut off, slammed on the breaks, passengers screamed. not that "i can't believe a vehicle of this size is taking this turn" death, but shattered glass, bodies on the pavement death.
• i had to run all over the world. to school, to wellcome, to school, to the dorm, to central, back to school
• my group cancelled on me. again. that last back to school was for their benefit and after i got there jane cancelled. grrrrrr.
• my camera batteries died just it time for me to not download my pics for my project.
  
• my cell phone ran out of minutes.
• the latte i spent most of the day depriving myself of was too sweet. i spent all day saying i was cutting back, and when i finally gave in, they over-syruped it and it was too hot to drink.
• the bus home was so full i had to stand half the ride. with my latte burning my hand. in heels.
• the tv on the bus was broken so i couldn't even watch the road show, and it was my favorite program, the one with the really pretty young dumb girl and the plain, smart older woman trying to be regis and kelly.
• my sister hates me on facebook.
  
• my room is a thousand degrees.
• my nail polish is all chipped.
• blogger is really slow lately and this post will take a decade to publish.

[sigh]
abby

You Got Served in Hong Kong

Today was the Interhall Dance Competition. Remember how I was once on the Wei Lun dance team? Today was the big day.

I gathered with Kel, Harj, Thijs, Susan and Lars to watch the festivities on the stairs of Haking Wong podium, where we had an excellent view. It was something. The teams went all out with professional choreographers, amazingly mixed music, and full-on costumes. All hip-hop nearly all skanky.

The highlights were the group that came out in long green army jackets (which they eventually stripped out of) and did a lot of moved reminicent of saluting hitler; the University team whose music was a mix of Nintendo themes over a hip-hop beat, and my hall whose costumes were green, belly-bared, booty-hangin-out cheerleading uniforms. It was all nonsense.

In other news, I went to the beach with Kelly today.

And I got a 91.1% on my Canto test!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go Me-
Abby

Carnivores Love Shoes

Since the tragedy of the weekend I needed new shoes. Seriously, I have no comfy walking sandals. Well, I didn't, but now Kelly and I have remedied that situation.

After that shopping, we had worked up a powerful hunger. For meat. Boo vegitarians. We made huge delicious cheeseburgers and ate two each. It was heavenly.

-Abby

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Bob Dylan knows what's up. But the High Fidelity Soundtrack also goes great with rain.

It started pouring rain about an hour ago, complete with blinding lightening and enormous thunder.

It hasn't stormed since I've been in HK. The heat this weekend has been oppressive. The humidity was nearly unbearable.

The rain was welcome. I ran up to the roof in my jammies and stood in the rain for like 20 minutes. Ali was up there, having a smoke and hiding in a doorway. He apparently has never seen someone just stand in the rain. He said he would have joined me if any piece of my attire had been more transparent when wet.

The rain fell straight down with amazing conviction. No wind, it just streamed down steadily. With all the light pollution, smog and rain everything was blurred and glowing red and orange. The rain was loud enough to silence the traffic and kids canto pop from downstairs and the squealing of girls frightened by the thunder. The lightning wasn't really visible, it was too far away and hidden by the buildings and hills, but it snapped and everything was blue. The thunder was really rewarding too. It didn't rumble in the distance or clap, it just thundered nice and loud and long. Best rain ever.

It took about 34 seconds for me to be soaked through. Once you are that wet, there is no point in rushing in. You can't possibly get more wet, so you lose nothing my staying out. Plus all that time gives you time to consider your options once you do reenter the building. You will be dripping wet for the entirety of the 11 floors you have to traverse to your room, and there is no chance you can shed any of your clothes before you reach that destination.

I finally opted to take the stairs down since no one uses them, and when I got to my floor I was right next to the bathroom. I stripped in the shower and wrung out my clothes and hair and then put the damp things back on for the walk to the room. It worked all right.

:)I miss playing with Dia in the rain.

Having Been a RockStar since Thursday

Thursday night was lovely. We had dumplings, went home, went to bed early like good little girls. That was an event not repeated.

Friday we took Cowboy out for a nice Italian dinner in Soho and then worked on getting him embarassingly drunk. Mission Accomplished. My Gender Diversity group met in LKF to take some pictures for our poster. Marco was really a force to be reckoned with after 7 glasses of wine.

Large portions of Friday night are blurry in my memory, but the pictures are assembling a time-line in my mind. The worst thing is that I broke my gold sandals! The heel popped off of one sometime and I walked on it long enough to make it unfixable :( I'm so sad. Now I have to go shoe shopping. Ok. I'm still a little sad though.

Saturday night I went out with the architecture boys, did some salsa dancing and watched a football game. Not Football, the noble sport of America, but that other football that whiney Europeans and sissy men play. It was sort of fun, being at the Hand with a bunch of Englishmen shouting at the TVs.

Harj and I made a graceful exit before a friendly Aussie man could kidnap us. He seemed he might after we turned down his friendly invitation to come back to his place (just round the corner- in Wan Chai) and smoke some hash (free!). Amazing anyone could refuse such hospitality. I'm pretty sure he was a pimp. Or involved in kidnapping students to sell into sex slavery. He had a phillipino girl in 3 inches of skirt come and sit on his lap and chat and he didn't hand over any money or even buy her a drink. Creepy.

Anyhow, I was in bed by 4 which was admirable. Today I got up in the morning and did a lot of good work with Beth at Pacific Coffee. Went to dinner with Virginia and Alli, Jack and Phil and Mary. Jack is a riot. Phil told us a story about their trip to Thailand so horrific I can't even repeat it. I'm traumatized for life.

A weekend best described in pictures. Which can be found here.

Abby

Love to my Twin-ies

I got my Easter gift the other day from Gina and Grace and I loved it. I colored the eggs with my highlighters (I dont have any crayons or markers!) so they are neon green and yellow. I love my "a" luggage tag too. Its hard to identify my suitcase sometimes and now it had a cute purple tag on it. Very A-Team-tastic!

I can't wait to see pics of you girls in your Easter outfits! I still don't have any pictures of you here :(

Thank you for my present, can't wait to get home to see you.

Boo Cantonese.

So its been a busy week. The team was reunited on Monday night and the evening was spent roof-side catching up on all the weekend shenanigans.

Tuesday I went to class and got stood up by my Gender Div group and studied Canto a bit. And then tragedy struck. We arrived in Wan Chai (me all dolled up in bondage pants and fishnet sleeves and everything) and Carnegies was gone! There were big temporary walls around it and 'Closed for Construction' signs. :( What were we to do without free vodka??? Well we regrouped and headed to this place around the corner called 'Skitz'. Free drinks for ladies, much higher quality than the free vodka.
There was a band... they were good, but odd? Four black guys, one with loooong dreds, they took turns singing and covered nearly every genre you'd play in a bar. The bass player sang Bryan Adams' 'Summer of '69', the drummer sang Kanye West's 'Golddigger' and the keyboard player sang 'Let It Be' by the Beatles. Couldn't have been more random.
Some of us ended up at Old China Hand later and I eventually made it to LKF with a trio of trouble. There were some amusing pics taken of me misbehaving that night. If Thijs ever sends them to me I'll post one or two. It was a good night.

Wednesday not so much good. Hang over + studying Canto = misery. But it was Cowboy Dan's birthday so we had a roof bbq which was really fun and Mary broke out some classic country at the birthday boy's request. I've missed country. We sang loud. And by "we" I mean Mary, Dan, Kelly and I. The Europeans were horrified, the Aussies confused and the other Americans were too cool and sophisticated to be countrified. Losers.

Today: Cantonese test. Harder than the last. :( I hope I did better than I thought I did. Its not my fault that the Chinese want to have the word hou have 6 meanings. Its confusing. Grrrrrr.

Later today... We're going for dinner at the dumpling King where you can get half a dozen fried dumplings, noodle soup, and sweet soy milk for $18HK. Thats less than $3US. You may not know about delicious HK fried dumplings, but 6 is a lot for one girl to eat alone. They are full of unidentifyable meat and veggies and fish and are sooo greasy and delectable. And then you get a liter of soup. Seriously the bowl is the size of my head. Its ridiculous.

Looking forward to dinner-
Abby

the proper way to SPEND easter.

Oops wrote the entry and forgot to post it. Here's something late.

The big Easter day plan yesterday was to take a free Chinese cake-making class and then come home and paint Easter eggs, eat french toast and be merry.

But the best-laid plans...

When we arrived at the class, we were informed that it was already full. Sadness. It was noon (very early for a hong konger) and we were in TST (Tsim Sha Tsui, on the Kowloon side. A great distance from Wei Lun). Well hating to waste a $9 trip accross the harbor, Beth and I fell to doing what we do best. Shopping.

And shop we did. I offered to take her to the Jade Market, since she'd never been, and I wanted to buy a necklace for one of the girls back home. It is quite a long walk to the Jade Market though and there were a lot of shoe shops along the way. I managed to control myself and did not purchase any shoes. Beth got a shirt at the Nike store that said "Futbolistas smoke the grass" Its magnificent.

Halfway to the Market we met up with Shahar. Eventually we got there and in the typical fashion of the women of my tribe, I bought myself a pearl necklace and didn't get anything for my friend. Next time though. Beth managed to find a wooden bracelet and a leather and jade belt. We pretty much purchased every material at the Jade Market that was not Jade. Smooth huh?

Post Jade we got lunch at the Spaghetti House, then did some more shopping on a side-street in TST. Beth bought a painting of HK which I fully intend to do as well sometime soon. Donations welcome. I bought a new shirt and a dress, both adorable and only $10US each.

Eventually we dragged ourselves back to a bus stop (after stopping for Gelato of course) and came home and made really classy Easter eggs. We're not exactly artists.

Later I met Anna on the roof for Easter chocolates and gossip. We ate the ears and face off her chocolate bunny.

I finished the night with Audrey Hepburn a la Breakfast at Tiffany's.

And that's how you do Easter. Apparently.

Looooong Weekends are Nice

No school Friday or Monday! Yay for Easter.

Thursday half the A-Team left HK. Hannah was headed for the Phillipines and Kelly and Alli were China-bound.

I got package from my mommy. She loves me so much she sent me Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Thats right, the Easter gift of Brokeback Mountain. She also sent me a cute new shirt with a frightening matching hat. I think its supposed to sheild me from the sun, because she also sent two big tubes of sunscreen. And coffee. Lots of delicious coffee.

Friday Beth and I spent the whole day studying. I learned a tiny bit of Cantonese. And the official symbols of the transgendered community.

Today I did some scary things. I cleaned my room. Like all of it. Even under the desk. It was terrifying. Now my room is weird. I keep thinking I walked in the wrong door. I also did laundry, despite the fact that I still have clean underwear. I really wanted to wear my batman shirt.

I started blowing eggs so that tomorrow we can paint them. I used the insides to make delicious french toast which I topped with strawberries. I'm a genious. The Pelican Brief was on while I cooked, so it was like Julia and Denzel were there.

I love how I didn't go to school yesterday or today, won't go tomorrow and still have another day off after that. If only the weather would warm up so I could not go to class at the beach!

abby... who had too much free time to google images and links for every 5th word in this blog entry.

I Love Dia. I Love the Navy. I Love Lamp.

So Monday- a horrible day. I was so bad at life. Kelly, Anna and I went out at midnight and tried to redeem ourselves- failed horribly. We did find a cool bar in LKF though, Le Jardin. Tucked way out of sight and totally outdoors.

Tuesday- Was tired and down most of the day due to the overwhelming failure of Monday. Was improved enormously by the arrival of a package from Dia containing chocolates, Cosmo and Easter socks. Love to Dia. Timing baby, you've got it. I like your moves. Anyway I went to class, vegged, hit the town. Free Vodka, Kangaroo Bar, usual routine, somewhat unusual cast. Raj, of the 'Sensational Six', has joined forces with the 'A-Team' in an exchange program for awesome people. Amanda's bf is in town and we picked up some random Canadians. Fritz and Johannes got into a beer fight. Messy. They also came into the girls bathroom with me so I wouldn't have to pee alone. Nice boys. Kelly was of course my partner in crime for the duration of the evening. It started out with a lot of promise and then fell into a deep pool of pity. Life is hard sometimes.

Wednesday- started around noon, went to Sexual Diversity and was horrified by the topic of love and sex between children and adults. Luckily, I was recruited into a group of cool kids for our final project which is due in two weeks. Two girls who speak fantastic English, a local flaming nursing student named Marco and a mainlander who is a CompE and lives in Wei Lun. It's gonna be fantastic.
Spent the evening with Kelly doing homework and came home to a lovely surprise. The cool navy guy I partied with this weekend had emailed me. He's precious. His name is Ricky. Of course.
I was a bit of a horrible person tonight though, I told some folks I'd be out tonight and then couldn't be bothered. So I guess I stood up some Canadians and Raj and Amanda. I want to feel bad about this, but I'm tired and have class in the morning.

Snap! You're up to date.
Abby

I've been horribly injured. Send flowers.

I just ripped the nail off of my left middle finger. It is bleeding and hurts very badly.

i came home from the grocery store and there were strange men in my room, plastering the wall under the window. they tore up the whole room. when they left i tried to remedy the situation by putting the mattress back on the bed. the mattress teamed up with gravity and viciously removed half of my fingernail. life is so hard sometimes.

hannah bandaged me, and it feels a tiny bit better. the bandaid isn't going to fix what was previously a perfect manicure with nails of similar lengths though. [sigh]

:( abby

Weekend Recap

Quick blog while I chat to Kerry on AIM

Friday Night: Went for margarita's with the girls then hit up Anna's uncle's swanky club. DJ Charles Peterson was making a special appearance, by invitation only. We're top notch celebs in HK. Club was full of swanky boring people (except Beth and Anna who are swanky, but awesome). Somehow managed to stay out until 5 with Alli and Kelly (my early morning sidekick for life) and give my number to some Navymen. Yay military!

Saturday: "BBQ" at the beach. Except we couldn't be bothered to fire up any grills so we just ate chips and food from the food stand. Also the shenanigans from the previous evening kept everyone in bed pretty late. I did get to hang out with Simon though, which is a rare, happy occasion. Sunburning was minimal, I've managed to get 1 shade darker without peeling. Hell hath frozen over.

Saturday Night: stayed in like a bunch of old biddies, watching movies (Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State) with the girls. Went to bed early, slept 11 hours. I'd earned it.

Sunday: Late coffee with Anna and Beth at Pacific Coffee. Stretched it into a 5 hour lunch/ gossipathon/ discussion of world affairs over the Sunday South China Morning Post. Was called by Navymen and invited to Wanchai for Sunday evening drinks.

Sunday Evening: Went to Wanchai solo. Never located the boys from Friday, but easily made new friends. Banana Joe's was packed with servicemen and women (but mostly men). Even though it was before 6, the music was up loud, the beer was flowing, and the place was crunk. Abby did her some dancing. Most of the boys had a 9pm curfew because they ship out first thing tomorrow, and it was good timing because the typical fight broke out at about 8:35 and killed the party. I was home by 9, in time for a little roof party with wine and banana boats. I've created a team of monsters with the chocolate-filled bananas.

Thus, my weekend. My short recap came out longer than I thought. Oh well. Your problem, you're the one reading it.

OH! a tragedy has occured. I have to ghetto-rig my camera. The latch on the battery door broke and now the batteries fall out. The obvious answer is duct tape. :(

Abby

Price Check Please?

So Wednesday (yesterday) was a national holiday in HK. No school!!!! We girls decided that the turn of the weather towards summer and the free day called for bikinis. Thus, the beach.

We went to St. Stephan's Beach, which is rather small and just past Stanley Market. Twas I, Kelly, Anna and Beth. Later we were joined by Jessie, then Amanda and Marjan. It was lovely. Except for the heat. Weather reports put the temperature at 27C (81F) but in the afternoon next to the ocean, it had to have been over 90F. We roasted. Eventually it got a bit overcast and was very lovely beach weather though and the little stand in the hillside had delicious spring rolls. Which helped.

Kelly and I burned. Kelly got it worse than me, but I'm a bit unhappy. We had slathered ourselves in sunscreen, but with all the sweating and jumping into the water to cool off, it just wasn't as effective as one would hope. Anna and Beth scoffed at the idea of wearing anything higher than SPF 15. They clearly don't understand the milky white skin of midwesterners. All we had was 30.

Anyway, this all led to me going to Watsons today to buy stronger sunscreen and some aloe. Here I was shocked, appalled and saddened. First of all, 4oz of Coppertone costs $88HK. That's $11US for a tiny bottle of sunblock. 6oz of aloe was about the same. By my estimates I'm paying double what I'd pay in the states for sunscreen and triple for aloe vera. Offended, I walked next door to Mannings and found the same items at the same prices. Life is so hard.

A cultural comparison
The true cause for the price hike in HK isn't because I'm looking for American brands or because they don't need sunblock here. Its because sunscreen is a cosmetic specialty item like Crest Whitestrips or sunless tanning lotion. Girls here want to stay as white as possible. There are dozens of whitening facial scrubs and after-sun bleaches for girls trying to look like porcelain dolls. No chinese girls go tanning. I'm formulating a theory that the obsession with pale skin is the reason asians age slower that Caucasians. Chinese women have youthful-looking skin in their forties because they have protected their skin from sun damage since adolescence. What a brilliant societal twist. An environment in which beauty standards parallel health measures. The Chinese know what's up my friends. Look out.

BBQ on the roof

Our final salute to the momentous occasion of Thijs' 25th birthday was a barbeque on the roof of Wei Lun on Tuesday. The gang was all there (me, Anna, Alli, Hannah, Beth, Kelly, Jessie, Virginia, Thijs, Jesse, Harj, and Ali). The food we girls made was amazing. Salmon, spare ribs, corn on the cob, potatoes, salad, guacamole, sangria, pineapples and brown sugar, and banana boats. After introducing the chocolate stuffed grilled bananas, Kelly fell in love with me. She is now my slave.

It was super fun, it was a clear night (a rarity here), warm, there was music, hookahs, weird Chinese porn mags (birthday gifts) and beer. Everything a kid could need for a good time on the 15th floor. Pictures of such nonsense:

V for Vendetta. and by 'vendetta' I mean 'awesomeness'

So the boy and I went to see V for Vendetta last night. We were supposed to go with Beth and Shahar while the rest of the kids went to see Syriana (which Beth and I have both already seen). B and her man decided to order pizza and stay in though.

How was the movie? Amazing. All knife fights and revolutions and "Britain Prevails!" The cast was top notch, the writing was rather political, the blood was profuse. Everything a girl could want, plus a new phrase to live by- "A revolution without dancing, is a revolution not worth having!". Natalie Portman is precious and totally hot with her shaved head. Hugo Weaving (the man behind the mask of V) has such a distinctive voice and did a brilliant job having character with no face. Altogether, I've already decided I need to memorize several speeches and buy it immediately.

After the movie it was grits and waffles at The Flying Pan and then home. A quiet well-behaved night for me. Not so much for the rest of my girls I heard. Troublemakers all around.

Tomorrow is Thijs' birthday... well today actually, we've already had a drink to celebrate. In an admirable way, he's stretching the whole thing into a three day affair. Roof drinks tonight, dinner out tomorrow on the day, and a barbeque on Tuesday, because Wednesday is a holiday and no one has class. Very ambitious. Look out bbq salmon. mmmmmmmmm. Pictures should be in plenty.

Well its my bedtime. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Abby