Writing is much more preferable to speaking, especially when English is concerned. Let's just take vowels for example. I can't distinguish between "pet","port", "pot", "pat", "part". They all sound the same to me. This means whether you are telling me you own a cat, a harbor, a cooking utensil, or a role in a TV … Continue reading Differences Big And Small

https://twitter.com/Haoyando/status/1351596520274075649 How can one know if a room has less than 18% oxygen? LOL. I try to recall the high school chemistry classes, which happened such a long time ago. Is there an easy way to know the percentage of the oxygen in the air? I mean is there something called oxygen-meter that can check … Continue reading 18% Oxygen

I dislike competitions and strive to avoid them as best as I can, because competitions always make me feel dreadful. If I lose, I feel bad; If I win, I feel bad for people who haven't won, and simultaneously I also can't help wondering if the sense of triumph is shallow, short-lived, giving me the … Continue reading The Favorite Of 2020

Growing up, I've never heard any of my neighbors having any trouble with the police. Of course that's very much a half rural, almost un-industrialized environment where almost everybody knows everybody else. Even if you don't know that particular person, you know somebody who knows him. The unemployment rate is very high among young people … Continue reading Thoughts New And Old

Only two weeks into 2021, let me count all the breaches of my new year's resolutions. I know it is a little too soon, isn't it? What can I do? #1 breach: I won't watch any show about cooking or eating in 2021. That was my resolution, but in the past two weeks, I've watched … Continue reading Breach Of Resolution

I've tried every possible way to make at home exercise more pleasant, or rather less painful, but to no avail. I still haven't exercised despite trying to get myself to do it the entire week. DVD, online videos, Fitness Marshall series, book reading while throwing limbs back and forth, making an exercise plan, imagining good … Continue reading No Exercise

No concentration today. I have a lot to do, but my mind just seems not interested in the goal anymore. Probably because yesterday I wrote something about politics, and I did it in the mildest way possible, but still somehow I feel somebody is annoyed at my post. However I don't want to change just … Continue reading Without Concentration

The TV show "Alpha House"(of eight years ago) has one episode about the chaotic scenes after an overenthusiastic republican senator pulls out a gun to assert her rights to bear firearms in the hallway of the Capital. She is a beauty with straight blonde hair, sweet smile and a true killer attitude. The alarm is … Continue reading Predictions

I need to start throwing away things because there are just too much stuff. I actually made a rule in 2019 that if I buy one item, I will make sure to throw away one item. Of course this is a rule that has no teeth and no claw to help me adjust my behavior. … Continue reading Throwing Away

My friend is going to have a Zoom interview before Christmas and she has been dreading the terrifying moment for a week now. Interviews are usually hard to deal with. Interviews are especially hard to deal with for introverts, for people who tend to be nervous and diffident, for women above a certain age. If … Continue reading Interview Before Christmas

It's really not too bad, only a foot of snow. In certain parts of nearby states like New York and Connecticut, it can be two feet. One would think global warming has made snow obsolete for the latitude and the altitude we are in. For the past three years, it seems true. We've had no … Continue reading Let It Snow

For years, we have been practicing this holiday routine of driving in the surrounding neighborhoods in search of the house with the best Christmas lights. In order to do that, you have to have several friends in one car, driving around to comment, evaluate, praise the arrangement, the variation, the scale of the lights on … Continue reading Christmas Lights

If something is oversized, you want to think it over. That's the first rule for holiday shopping. It's a two pound ball in a deep red dress, smiling at me and begging me to take it. So my heart takes a little leap and I give in. A two pound pomegranate reminds me of my … Continue reading Holiday Shopping

You scream, you curse, you throw items to the wall--make sure they are non-valuable low-impact items so that you don't feel bad for the item or the wall later on. You send "rescue me" messages to others to vent your anger. You think about existential questions like why you were born, why you live. You … Continue reading Life Goes On

https://twitter.com/Haoyando/status/1336750990666706947 This picture doesn't do justice to the cute restaurant in this local strip mall. It was a little snowy outside and I was driving past it to go to the Kam Man grocery store to buy lunch. The tents used to look much better during the summer months, more shiny, more in shape, certainly … Continue reading Drama In Asian Restaurant

Two women meet in the grocery store. They are very happy to see each other and it looks like they haven't seen each other for a while, glad to accidentally meet in one of the refrigerator aisles. They talk and talk. At the checkout, one woman says loudly, “It’s the doom’s day. We are too … Continue reading Weekday Outburst

"What do you think?" or "What will you do if it were you?" You are pressed to say something on a delicate situation, for which you'd rather have no opinion or pretend not to have an opinion. The situation becomes more dire when it concerns your friend's love life. If you don't give an answer, … Continue reading How To Give Delicate Advice

I am not surprised that there are so much disinformation, conspiracy theories, frauds, fraudulent claims of fraud right now. The reason is that as an immigrant, I am used to misconceptions and misinterpretations for years. The English we had learned in classroom is not the English people really use here; The stories of immigrants we … Continue reading Misconception And Misinterpretation

Someone said, "The first experience can never be repeated.  The first love, the first sunrise…" and I agreed immediately, being good-natured as I am, afraid of offending by disagreement, eager to smooth things over at the expense of self expression. However, I don't agree with such an overt admiration for the "first". There are just … Continue reading The First Try

If your friend suggests a road trip together during the holiday season to visit another friend in a different state, please be strong and deny it right away despite the fact that you heart is tinkling with the desire for some activities. You have to be firm and don't betray any sign of hesitation or … Continue reading A Road Trip

I think we should all be thankful to others this year. However that's not what I want to talk about here, which is being thankful to ourselves. Many of us don't feel that we are being appreciated enough. Part of the reason is that we don't thank ourselves enough. Worse, some of us even hate … Continue reading Thankful Reflections

Please don't ask me whether we should go shopping on black Friday. I won't answer that question. If you have already made up your mind of going or not going, do not plague your friends with your soliciting tone, "what do you think? To go or not to go?" I know a couple who would … Continue reading To Go Or Not To Go

Holiday cooking is a happy hazard, meaning it is never perfect and something a little hazardous is bound to happen to twist the holiday cheers. It is almost an old tired tune to repeat if I say turkey was only cooked once in the past ten years and there are several reasons for it. First … Continue reading Holiday Evolution

One thing good about the holiday season is that one feels happy about one's own grumpiness. All the stress of experiencing cheerful things, the boredom of shopping trips, the mental anxiety of trying to say something less like holiday cliches can add up and make anybody grumpy. But we tell ourselves, "it's a holiday. We … Continue reading Happy And Happier

My friend said his father is getting forgetful, but his father's doctor told them that his cognitive ability is at the top 5% of his age group. The family should be celebrating rather than worrying about his mental state. So I asked how the doctor made the judgement call and my friend said the doctor … Continue reading Remember Or Not

Although I didn't watch it on Tuesday night, I spent many hours watching last night, throwing aside other things I need to do. I really don't understand why many swing states can't finish counting their votes while all the non-swing states have no trouble at all to finish the counting on election night--except Alaska. These … Continue reading Comprehend A Little Bit More

"Alexa, tell me a joke?"Silence. My Kindle Fire is hitting a mini glitch. "Alexa, hello.""It's Sarcasm Awareness Month, and I say 'hi'.""Alexa, can you tell me a joke?""Why do zombies make such excellent golfers? They really know their way around a corpse.""I can write better jokes than that." I say to my friend immodestly. "Really? … Continue reading That’s No Joke

I've often seen the phrase "old news", but never seen the phrase "new news", which is obviously considered as redundancy, pleonasm, tautology or whatever other pedantic words available. However in the age of frantic pace of various media, there should be a phrase "new news" to distinguish the news within two or three hours, from … Continue reading Old News and New News

When I first came to America, I was surprised to learn that autumn is commonly called "fall" here, probably due to the falling leaves. The autumn foliage of red and yellow and orange in Pennsylvania is spectacular. Nothing characterizes the autumn better than the word "fall" of these beautiful leaves in such a scale. Though … Continue reading Fall Is My Favorite Season

I ordered the book "The Barbarians Are Coming", borrowed the book "Pangs Of Love" from Archive.org, and are planning to proceed to Chang-rae Lee's books sometime later. I haven't read any books by Asian American authors for a long time, all because of "Joy Luck Club". It's not that I don't like the book. On … Continue reading The Year Of Change