my mom's new ride...

a new jaguar xf.

believe me, i was just as shocked as you probably are right now. unfortunately, it won't arrive until october.

it's been a while...

since my last post.  i'm currently waiting to receive my registration package from FIT and for them to 1) give me housing and 2) give me financial aid.  housing is kind of frustrating because i need to be on campus by august 16, which is not that far off, and if i don't get campus housing i need to find an apartment.  financial aid is a little more optimistic.  since i already have a bachelor's degree and am going to be a full-time student again, i technically qualify as a graduate student, which entitles me to more financial aid even though i'm not technically in a graduate program.  i hope.

i need words...

as wide as sky

i need a language large as

this longing inside

i need a voice

bigger than mine

i need a song to sing You

that i've yet to find

i need You...

now that my summer has slowed down, i've had some time to process everything that's happened in the past...say 15 months...and honestly, i'm not sure i can describe it.  perhaps it would be best to keep it simple.  this will probably be the least eloquent post ever.

about 15 months ago, i committed myself to pursuing fashion as a career.  15 months later, i've sent in my tuition deposit to the best fashion school in the country.  seriously...HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

15 months ago, as i had minimal experience in all 3 fields of fashion sketching, sewing, and textiles that were needed to produce a competitive portfolio.  by january, i had sent in a portfolio that which included fashion sketches and photos of complete garments i had sewn myself, all with fabric swatches that indicated the type of fabric i used or intended to use with each garment or sketch. by june, i had received my acceptance letter from FIT.  the whole time, i was both elated and scared to death.  i'm still both elated and scared to death, because honestly, the hard part has just begun.

simply put, I AM SCARED OF FAILURE.  sometimes, i'm more scared than elated.  i thought i had never wanted anything else in my life more strongly than this.  and God made me wait longer than usual for the answer to my prayers--while most people received their decision letters in april, mine didn't arrive until june.  and in the past 4 or so months, God reminded me that there are infinitely more important things in life than this.  and i have no hesitation in proclaiming that He is right.

on the whole, the past 15 months probably qualify as the most wonderful period of my life so far, not just because of this, but also because of the relationships i have been so privileged to have been a part of.  the Lord is good.

Lord Jesus, thank you for being too wonderful for words.

free day!

today was my first complete free day since the summer started, as i had finished all my errands and whatnot yesterday.  what did i do with myself today, then?  why, i went to the museum of fine arts!  perfect timing too because admission is free on thursdays! the exhibition i was primarily interested in is called "designed by architects," which presented things like mantle clocks, flatware, tea and coffee service items that were designed by some of the leading architects of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.  one of the my favorite pieces was this beautiful silver mantle clock by charles robert ashbee, who was a prime participant in england's arts and crafts movement:

then in the afternoon, i watched portugal play germany in the quarterfinals of euro 2008.  the game ended 2-3 to the germans, who now progress to the semis--a great game for the neutrals, although cristiano ronaldo didn't score.

we are back online, sir...

when i came back from duke, i discovered that our wireless router was no longer among the operational, much to my annoyance.  the funny thing is that i only recently found the time to rectify the problem this past sunday.  now, i can finally use my macbook again.  thank God, because if i had to use my mother's pc much longer, i might have become violent.  oh, how i hate microsoft.

DISCLAIMER: although i love apple, i am NOT that person who takes their macbook to starbucks and puts apple and barack obama stickers on their toyota prius, because 1) i hate starbucks, 2) i don't have a lot of confidence in BO's economic plan, and 3) i hate cars.

anyway.

the highlight of this past week was when i found out that i got into FIT, which in case you didn't know is the best fashion school in the country--i'd be crazy not to go!  i would have found out upon my return from china, but they sent my acceptance package to my duke address after i had changed my preferred mailing address with their system back in late april and had even received an address change confirmation e-mail proving it!  so i had to have them send another one to my houston address. apparently, i hear it's not uncommon for the school to take so long to send applicants a response.  whatever.  the moral of this story is that the school is, administratively, a mess.  anyway, here's the cover of the acceptance folder:

and no ugly tote bag this time, for better or worse.

in other news, i said in my last post that by this past friday, i would have my bartender license.  well, ladies and gentlemen, here it is:

unfortunately, because i'm leaving for new york in less than two months (mid-august), i'm having trouble finding a job, since employers understandably don't want to hire a bartender for such a short time period.  in fact, if i weren't leaving so soon, i'd already have TWO jobs!  poop.

if you're interested, here's FIT's academic calender.  there appears to be a lot of holiday time, which is awesome.

oh dear...

i've been busier than i would have anticipated upon returning from china. by the end of the week, i shall have obtained my bartender license. i hope i can get a job soon after. from what i understand, the turnover rate for bartenders can be fairly high, probably because there's a lot of BAD bartenders out there. EYE however, am not one of them. so hopefully, i will soon be employed.

my other goals for the summer include:

1. bringing back the cursive handwriting. did you know that elementary schools no longer teach kids to write in cursive? it's all keyboarding these days. how depressing.

2. increasing the number of recipes in my culinary repertoire and improving upon those i already have

3. reading books that i have already wanted to read but did not have the time to in college.

4. increasing the speed at which i draw naked wo--uh, i mean...fashion figures.

5. designing!

6. making more progress decorating my parents' house

7. visit the museum of fine arts, the contemporary arts musuem, and the lawndale art center

8. and finally, if i can, apprentice under chloe dao. for those of you who do not know who chloe dao is, she was the winner of project runway, season 2. she's based in houston, and i now live 5 minutes from her boutique. i need to get myself together. seriously.

to be more precise, these are more like resolutions in the sense that i probably won't accomplish all of them, but i will of course try to accomplish most of them.

how about you guys?

sleeping with the lights on...

that’s how i was sleeping in shanghai because of all the mosquitoes. i got at least 20 bites, all of them while I slept. one of them even got me on MY FACE. i was staying in my grandfather’s new apartment, which doesn’t have insect screens on the windows yet. most people in china still don’t use a/c so during the day they like to open the windows and that’s when the mosquitoes would fly in. moreover, the mosquitoes in china are extremely crafty—they would hide until you turn off the lights to go to bed…then they ATTACK. when i turned the lights back on to try and kill them, they would immediately hide again. it was so INFURIATING.

anyway. i apologize in advance for the length of this post.

shanghai always reminds me of coruscant because of all the fancy skyscrapers spread throughout the city as opposed to being concentrated in one “downtown” area like most cities in the united states. i can easily imagine flying cars zipping through the city skies. (for those of you who got that star wars reference, that’s about as far as my nerd persona goes, mind you haha.) i also noticed a surprisingly large number of parks and an excessive number of hotels. other than the hotels, o think shanghai is a very well-planned city. like i said, the city has a surprisingly large amount of greenery. in addition to the parks, many of the freeways are lined with shrubs that hang in containers off the side of the freeway railings. the busiest streets are nice and wide, and their intersections are governed by traffic and pedestrian crossing lights that count down the seconds to both the next red light and the next green light. there are also walkways above these intersections that pedestrians can use.

unfortunately, shanghai suffers from terrible pollution. houston is the smog capital of the united states, but it’s nothing compared to shanghai. visibility is extremely limited, even when the sun is out. in fact, you can hardly make out the outline of the sun on sunny days. consequently, buildings, especially windows, in shanghai get dirty extremely quickly. actually, everything just looks dirtier in shanghai, and there’s dust everywhere. there’s also that omnipresent “china smell” everywhere you go, and public restrooms don’t usually have toilet paper. shanghai is a nice city to visit, but i don’t think i could ever live there.

the purpose of my visit to china this time was two-fold: visit my relatives and shop. according to my grandmother, the most terrible thing in life is old age for 2 primary reasons: loneliness and declining health. i’m not sure if i agree with her completely, although i realize she’s speaking from a female perspective. of course, i’m not so audacious as to imply i know women. nevertheless, her words affected me enough i suppose where i spent an entire day playing mah jong with her and her friends. now, i enjoy mah jong, but usually not for more than a few hours at a time. however, i found this day to be quite enjoyable throughout. does that make me a good grandson? i don’t know, but i lost a lot of money.

as for shopping, i did a lot of browsing but not a lot of buying. tai kang road was my favorite shopping area. it houses numerous art galleries belonging to local artists, in addition to small shops in a charming, pedestrian maze. some of the artists were AMAZING, and i would have bought some of their work if i had the money and the means to transport them back to the states. one of the galleries (now a musuem) belonged to the late chen yifei, a famous film director, painter, and fashion designer. his oil paintings were one of the earliest of its type to be exhibited and sold in western countries. many of his works recorded high prices at christie's, sotheby's, and other auction houses in new york and hong kong. he gave much of the money earned from the sale of his paintings to project hope, a charity foundation that benefits the underprivileged, and set up an arts foundation. he launched a clothing line named leyefe and set up a homeware outlet in shanghai, called leyefe home. one of his movies was once entered at the cannes film festival. all the while, he acted as the agent of several successful chinese models. here's a fine example of his oil painting:

obviously, he was extremely talented and prolific, but he died from gastrorrhagia caused by exhaustion.

another highlight of my time in shanghai was the cloud 9 bar on the top floor (87) of the jin mao tower, which houses the grand hyatt starting on floor 54. the elevators are so fast that your ears pop while going up. it's currently the highest you can legally get in shanghai. this is the view from where i was sitting:

i had a surprisingly good conversation with my dad, and as i was sitting there, staring out at the city and sipping my caipirinha (a most excellent concoction, by the way), i became painfully aware of the enormous gap between the rich and the poor in shanghai. essentially, the rich are mostly foreigners and the poor are mostly locals. the dichotomy is strikingly reminiscent of a caste society, and for many other reasons that i won't get into here, i think china on the whole is hurtling towards a massive social crisis on a scale the world has yet to witness, the potential consequences of which terrify me.

hong kong however, is much nicer and is still considered a separate political entity such that i had to show my passport to get in from china, which technically owns the place. it's generally cleaner and more civilized than china, and the shopping is better there, too. i was most impressed by the alcohol gel dispensers installed in many public places, undoubtedly a result of the sars epidemic a few years ago.

i stayed at the hong kong university of science and technology. my father has a friend who is a professor there, who he apparently met in italy and who invited my father to give a guest lecture on his research. as a result, we got free food and housing at the university, which by the way is completely ridiculous in that it sits on the waterfront of clear water bay and the views are breathtaking. what's more, there's a soccer pitch right next to the water! apparently, all 3 universities in hong kong are like this. i don't know how they get any work done there. unfortunately, i have no pictures to show.

the crazy thing is that i ran into tiffany hui my first day there. one of the reasons i was in hong kong in the first place was to attend her birthday party so after i got settled into my room i called her to set up a time and place where we would meet. i told her where i was staying, and she told me that she thinks she's there right now! i hung up the phone and walked outside and there she was. what are the chances, right? it turns out her party was moved to the next day and she was currently being shown around the university with her family.

the rest of my stay was somewhat less...creepy. i went shopping with tiffany the next day and then clubbing with her and her friends that night. on my last day in china, i had afternoon tea at the peninsula hotel, which is has traditionally been hong kong's most exclusive, as evidenced by the many roll-royces waiting in front of the lobby. however, afternoon tea was in a word, disappointing.

in other news, i became a big fan of kanye west in china.

i am...

BACK.

stay tuned for a more detailed update after in finish my errands.