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Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

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weather	:		sunny
outside	:		21.0°C
mood	:		...

"What's '慈祥'?" he asked his beautiful new wife quietly with a curious smile. He knew they were talking about him, but he didn't understand what they were saying.

"慈祥 is..." she paused to telepathically gather all the pieces from a nebulous swirling cloud of thought.

"慈祥 is a serenity, kindliness, gentleness and compassion that exudes from deep within the heart and shows up in the face... usually only found in Buddhist monks and nuns."

He took a moment to absorb that, inwardly reeling in the complexity and compactness as much as in the fluidity in which she moved between languages and the immensity of the compliment his In-Law family had just paid him.

*          *          *

I've had a love story/fantasy in my head for a long time and that's a snippet near the end (if not the very end, I don't know yet).

It's about a boy and a girl who were destined for each other (naturally). =) She was reciting poetry by a lakeside and her mind blanks on the last line. He was passing by and finishes it off for her.

They meet, fall in love ... and proceed to completely hate each other. XD

It was a tragic slip of Fate. They go through one misunderstanding after another. But Destiny, Fortuity, Kismet, Chance and Circumstance keep them hanging together until everything gets ironed out.

I capitalized those words because they are actually minor deities in a second storyline. The six of them, like Muses, are not as powerful as Gods, but they do have some power. They were instructed by 觀音娘娘 (The Almighty Lady GuanYin) to bring the boy and girl in my story together... and they screwed up ... and kept screwing up and kept screwing up.

It's a dual storyline. The story of the boy and girl on Earth is a tragic, heart-wrenching tear-jerker. These two truly love each other, but somehow nothing goes right and they can't seem to get the message across. The minor deities trying to guide them and get them together under the right conditions is a comedy. This storyline is inspired by the hilarity of my relationship with the Husband Guy XD

The Lady GuanYin returns for a short while in the middle of the story and helps them. So, the boy and girl do get together for a bit of sweet romance, part of the way through. =) But as soon as the Lady GuanYin leaves The Six Little Guys on their own, they mess everything up again and the boy and girl are in tears and frustrated with each other again.

And on and on it goes. =)

I'm slower than glaciers at this writing thing. I get snippets out ... oh... every few years. I've been participating in NaNoWriMo almost every year nearly since it started. It's not working. I might have some semblance of a story in time to try it as a Holodeck simulation.

Maybe. I dunno.

weather	:		partially sunny
outside	:		8.8°C
mood	:		...

Most men in my Husband's family and circle of friends in the generation above us have served their mandatory training/service in the Taiwan military. Everyone hates it with a passion, it's seen as a necessary thing that no one wants to do. It's a waste of time and a waste of youth. To avoid military service is one of the biggest motivators to get into University. Everyone, who has sons and has the ability to do so, will emmigrate so that their sons won't have to participate when they grow up.

For those stuck with it, though, looking forward to the end has become so ceremonious that it has its own name.

數饅頭 (shǔ mán tóu), literally "to count the steamed buns".

Every week, each person is allocated food and other supplies for the week. One of the things you get is plain steamed buns. In the last week or two before discharge, the boys have made it a ritual to count down the days by eating one a day until they leave.

As a joke, we have started using this phrase to mean "counting down the days" for any event that we're looking forward to ending, like graduation, meeting a deadline on a project, last days/weeks of work before going on holidays, etc.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		10.9°C
mood	:		amused
music	:	鍾愛一生 - 杜德偉

夫妻臉 (fū qī liǎn) refers to a husband and wife couple whose faces look very similar.

It makes sense, in a way. In general, most of us are attracted to others who look more similar to our own likeness than average. This is part of the reason why people are generally attracted to partners of their own race. And we're attracted to partners who are of the same (or similar) level of attractiveness as ourselves.

This piece of brain lint was brought to you by Work.

Every once in a while, in the CCs of company e-mail, there appeared a female name that had the same surname as one of my Bosses ... not my Direct Report Boss, but the Departmental Big Boss With Three Non-Punctuated Letters In All Uppercase And A Slightly Smaller Type Size After His Name. I know he's been married for a while, because the whole office was laughing at him one day in mid-March when he remembered his wedding anniversary at 1645h and his assistant was helping him think of where he could pick up flowers on the way home =D =D

But this lady with the same last name was based in another office and I usually don't see her name enough to remember to wonder too often.

At first, I thought she was his wife. Then one day, she was in our office for a meeting. I was never formally introduced, but I did hear someone refer to her by first name and I knew it was her. She looked A LOT like him. And I kinda giggled inwardly...

Hehe... 夫妻臉 =)

But it turns out, I was wrong. They're siblings. =)

See my Word Collection

weather	:		drizzling
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		hopeful

埋 mái

頭 tóu

苦 kǔ

幹 gàn

It means "head down in intense labour."

I'm sure this phrase was originally used for physical labour. But it has also been used, metaphorically, to describe the act of studying or any other mentally or physically strenuous activity.

小鳥出來鬧了一陣子就回籠子埋頭苦幹。

This is how I would describe Skippy eating after some heavy duty paper strip attacking. =D

The Skippy Ticker, BTW, has been posted, but I made it so that it won't show up in your FRIEND View. I want to keep them on record, but rather than annoy everyone with the same stupid thing every day, if anyone is interested, you know where to find my journal. =)

We have more pictures and AVIs of her playing, but they're on Brother-in-Law's machine. I'll upload them later this afternoon. And I can say that she is cute now. =)

See my Word Collection