How Asparagus, Models, and Martin Yan Came Together

Today ended up probably being one of the best days I’ve ever had with my family in the longest time. Instead of going home, this time, they came up mainly to help me take most of the stuff from my room back home. However, I was able to inform them about the Stockton Asparagus festival in downtown Stockton, which was going on only this weekend, and the reason why we should all go there is because it was something special like Gilroy’s garlic festival.

I had to admit that the day started out badly at first. There was a miscommunication between me and my dad over the directions on which parking lot he should park at. He gave up trying to understand my directions and ended up parking across campus over at the John B. parking lot that when I got there, my mom wanted to go to the bathroom. So, I had to take them to the University Center’s bathroom, which, to my surprise, they seemed to not recognize at all. My brother had never seen the University Center so he was amazed by how nice my school seemed all the sudden. My parents said the food looked great, but of course, they don’t know how many times the dining hall food has sent me to the bathroom.

Then came the whole arguments of how my brother wanted to go to CQB City for Airsoft and there was realistically no way we could have dropped my brother off, gone to the Asparagus festival, and picked him up again. Insert lots of arguing, yelling, and defensive statements about miscommunication, misdirection, and mistranslation—I felt like this day was going down the drain. I had only met up with my parents on campus for only ten minutes at this point.

Things got even messier when I wasn’t sure how to get there so I pretty much instructed my dad how to get there all from memory. We turned the wrong way once but we figured it out really quickly and turned around on El Dorado Street. We found the place, but the $10.00 parking was what got to my mom. It was funny how some of the lots had signs that said they were full but the lots clearly had room for 10 or more cars. Oh well, I wasn’t complaining since we only had to walk an extra 20 feet. On the way walking out of the parking lot, a lady from a larger group of people approached us and asked if we wanted to buy a ticket from her that she had received ahead of time. She said she got it for free but was going to sell it to us for $5 to get in. At first, we all thought it was a scam but when I looked at it, it looked legit, and I told my parents we’d be saving $7 (adult admission was $12) if we took it from her so we paid her for it.



While we were standing in line at the Asparagus Festival waiting to have our bags checked and buying our tickets, I noticed the girl in front of me had this awesome amazing red hair. I got really excited for some reason and I wondered if her friends/family noticed that I was taking one or two pictures of her hair but I said it as obviously as I could that I really liked her hair and want to get my hair to look like hers if I let it grow out.



When we went inside, we were about to split off. My dad is extremely family-centered whereas my mom isn’t really at all. I told my parents that I was really hungry and wanted to get food but my mom wanted to go see the home and kitchen sections of the festival. She and my brother suggested that we split off into two groups and eat on our own while my dad and I said we should eat together as a family because this is what we came for. So, we head on along to the ticket booths where we thought we were going to eat a tons load of asparagus-related foods. Because I volunteered yesterday, I know that each of the asparagus food items cost 6 tickets, and each ticket was $1.00. My brother and I lined up and ended up spending $30 on tickets since the deep-fried asparagus that every other person was carrying around seemed so little.

Because I volunteered yesterday at the festival with two wonderful people from Alpha Phi Omega at a station that served asparagus burritos and beef asparagus sandwiches, I received feedback from two upset customers and a guy friend who I gave one of the burritos I had that the food tasted extremely bland. My brother and my dad initially wanted to try it, but I told them about the feedback I received from yesterday so we decided to go for what the festival was all about: deep-fried asparagus. I forgot to take pictures in the most important part of the festival, so there are no pictures of us eating the asparagus but this is what they looked like.


Credits: Entitee and Queenkv @ Flickr

My brother and I happened to really enjoy it, especially with the Ranch dressing. My dad thought it was alright, but my mom ended up hating it and saw it was nothing special. We sat in a shaded area that was extremely crowded. That worried me because I knew how my parents felt about wanting to be served and not sitting in the grass with everyone else. It wasn’t long though that with two orders of deep-fried asparagus, my brother and I ended up feeling bloated, which was bad since we had 18 tickets left, which could only be spent on asparagus-related items and drinks.

At this point, we agreed we should split off into our two groups. My brother and I decided to head to the boating area, and it was interesting having my brother ask questions about downtown Stockton, and thought the place looked nice. Obviously, he knew it was from a visitor’s point of view because the festival sort of covers up the ghetto-ness which is Stockton.

We wandered into this area where instead of rows of seats like you would find in a normal concert setup, there were rows of haystacks. We were just twenty minutes too late to have witnessed an asparagus eating competition where we heard that the winner ate about 9 pounds of asparagus! That was insane to hear since my brother ate the most asparagus out of all of us and all he could finish before feeling full was 2 ½ deep-fried asparagus, which was probably only a few ounces.



Next, we wandered into the Arts and Crafts section of the festival to look at the local jewelry, clothing, music, paintings, and furniture. I really admired a lot of the stuff that was out there and some of the intricacies and detail put into these things that were absent from the mass productions of Forever 21, Charlotte Russe, and H&M. I was really tempted to buy one and ended up purchasing this really pretty green and gold necklace and earring combo from this one vendor called Chrevan Art Glass for about $20. We met up with our parents for a bit, who told us that there wasn’t much to see in the Home and Kitchen area, which made me kind of sad because the large building made it look like as if there was a huge convention going on inside.



My brother and I then looked around at the other food vendors but were sad that we couldn’t try anything we saw since we were so full from lunch. We came across Mediterranean kebobs, lumpias, frozen ice cream, huge bags of kettle corn. In the Home and Kitchen section of the festival, there were chef demonstrations but we decided not to stick around for those since we were still too full from the asparagus that looked so little that ended up being too much. In there, we had some free samples of Mexican chicken, saw a yogurt drink that we hadn’t seen since we were kids, and got to look at strange vendors that involved termite extermination.

Afterwards, we went around outside to try different flavors of dip this one vendor had and different flavors of cashews, pistachios, and almonds. However, the most amazing food vendor of them all was this one station that sold gigantic drumsticks and meat breasts. I don’t know what animal they were from but I kid you not, these things were massive. We first saw this really tiny Filipino girl eating this massive drumstick that was bigger than her waist, and I wondered where on earth she found something like that. Then, we found the place that sold it, and knew there was no way we could eat it even if we wanted to. Who knew that asparagus would count as an entire meal.



At some point, my brother and I got into this long conversation about Wall-E when he mentioned that he wished he could take one of the golf carts that were parked by the grass to drive around the festival instead of walk. I launched into this whole Wall-E rant about how our lives today are so dependent on technology and Wall-E displays. Just seeing the way people are so dependent on it during the movie made me want to walk around even more, but I went into this whole rant on how the movie also gave an incredibly optimistic message that even after all this time in the movie that humans were dependent on technology, deep down, we appreciate the Earth we’re given and if given the right time and opportunity, we want to live life on Earth to the fullest extent. We want to do something about the Earth we were given. Somewhere in-between all of this, my brother wanted to go on the boat. Don’t ask. It was worth ten tickets, and I said it wasn’t worth driving a little raft around the Stockton port.

OK. Moving on from that mini-rant, after almost circling the entire festival for the second time and having a general idea where everything was, my dad called saying that it was time for us to go. My brother and I began to panic because we had 14 tickets left (4 were spent on drinks). We decided to go back to Asparagus Alley to buy all the stuff we could for no good reason. My brother picked out a burrito and I picked out a bowl pasta that none of us could eat. We had 2 tickets left that my brother spent on water even though I was already carrying 1.5L worth of water in my bag. I was hoping to find Alpha Phi Omega volunteers at the sandwich/burrito station that I volunteered at yesterday but didn’t see any of them there.

We met up with my parents in front of the Home and Kitchen area of the festival before we decided to head out. My mom and I argued about what to do with the pasta and the burrito so we decided to head back to campus to drop it off and bring the stuff I packed from last night to the car. What blew my mind this entire time was that my brother had NEVER seen my room this entire year and I was so sad that last night I took down most of the decorations on my wall. What he saw today was just a sad representation of what my room was like this entire year. Anyhow, the stuff that I packed all to moved to my car in about five minutes, which was much easier than I thought.

Then, I gave my entire family a two-minute tour of the downstairs of Alpha Phi. After that, we hopped back into the car and drove off to 8-Mile Road. My mom was dropped off at Ross while my dad, brother, and I went to Borders. Before we went into Borders, my dad pointed out a Mercedes SUV that looked exactly like the one we were driving. I ignored him until something happened later. Meanwhile, in the store, I managed to grab the May 2009 issue of Vogue with the 9 models on the cover. For the next hour, we got sort of bored wandering around the store, picking out things to look at when I found this:



I took several pictures because I thought it was so hilarious. I want this book but I don’t want to pay for this because I don’t believe a thing that Tyra says about believing in yourself, and even you can become a Victoria’s Secret supermodel.



We got bored enough that my dad and I walked over to Ross while my brother decided to move the Mercedes there. On the way walking there, my brother drove up next to us and told us that he went to the wrong car because apparently, his car keys unlocked not only his own car, but that other identical Mercedes SUV my dad mentioned earlier. My brother said he accidentally got into that car and realized he was in the wrong car before having to scramble out to find our car.

Ross was a semi-successful trip for me, wonderful for my dad, but failed for my brother and mom. I looked for shorts but couldn’t find any that I was willing to wear or the right size. I found three shirts that my dad and brother immediately approved of the moment I tried them on over the shirt I already wore. I’ve never received approval of what I wore so quickly so that had to be a good thing. Out of the three, I only chose two because I had to focus on finding shorts that fit right. My dad ended up buying a couple of shirts and my brother wasn’t in the mood so we wandered to Kohl’s where my parents eventually met up with us. To our surprise, my mom did not buy a single thing from Ross because she complained that she couldn’t fit into their clothes. Uh, oh.

However, she had slightly the same problem at Kohl’s but not as bad. She ended up getting something, which I strongly encouraged her to because I felt that if she didn’t, her self-confidence would be hammered by the fact she couldn’t fit into the clothes like she did a few months ago.

After Kohl’s we decided to head over to China Palace Restaurant. Before went inside, my dad has this obsession with Hollywood Video and their DVD deals so went in there, made a fuss as usual in the DVD section as we always do, and ended up walking out with the latest Indiana Jones movie and Babylon A.D. My dad likes Vin Diesel films. He’s kind of weird. Two funny things that came out of this was that my dad asked me if I was cold and if I needed his jacket. I told him I didn’t need it, and remembered I brought a light sweater with me and pulled it out of my bag. From my dad’s perspective, I’ve been pulling out things from this bag of mine for the entire day, so we had a good laugh about how it seemed like my bag was just like that one Volkswagen commercial where people kept coming out of the car more than what the car could actually hold. My bag just seemed to defy the laws of space because I was pulling out more than what it looked like it could hold.

Anyway, at China Palace, the food there was wonderful and the place was legitimately and authentically Chinese unlike the Oriental Buffet my parents were really fond of. We also heard that Martin Yan was actually in the building at the time we were there because of a wedding reception. I didn’t know who he was and my parents didn’t seem too roused up by that information so I figured he was a Z-list celebrity from my parent’s generation.



Over dinner, we talked about so many things like how our family used to go on vacations so easily, different types of retirement, and what was seen on the Discovery Channel and National Geographics about human longevity. I went into Pre-Pharm mode and explained as non-scientifically as possible the process of why humans genome doesn’t sustain longevity. Pretty much, I summed up three months of Genetics lecture into a three-minute speech on DNA structure and chromosome replication. If my genetics professor heard me say all of this, she would have murdered me because for some reason, I confused the word ‘kinetochore’ with ‘telomere’ the entire time. I felt there was something wrong with the word, kinetochore, being used, but I realized long after the conversation was over that I was trying to say telomere, not kinetochore.

Then, at the end of the dinner, my parents suddenly became really flustered that Martin Yan was in the next room, and that was then they explained to me that the restaurant chain of Yan Can Cook was actually owned by this chef. After trying to find my brother and mom (who were actually in the bathroom), we all went over to ask Martin Yan if we could have a picture with him. I thought it would be bad to interrupt him but then I told my mom, ‘We’re never going to see these people again. Let’s be rude.’ And for once, she agreed so she asked him in the middle of his conversation with an entire table of people if we could have a picture with him. He and this other lady (his wife?) joked with us saying that a picture with him would cost us $10. He was super-friendly and shook hands with all of us. My dad was so awkward though and kept repeating that he watched a lot of his shows on TV. I almost wanted to reply that I’ve never seen his show but I have seen his restaurant (in McCarthy Ranch closed down and was taken over by Red Kwali) but I didn’t. Anyway, he was really friendly, open, and charismatic—totally what you would hope to expect from a guy who has his own TV show and restaurant chain.



On the way back, I was a bit sad that the day came to an end. It started out on a really bad note because I was really frustrated with the way everyone was arguing earlier. However, in the car, I gushed on and on about how I was so happy that my parents came up and that even though the day began poorly, it ended fantastically. I was really left almost on a high because I was having so much fun with them. I didn’t want to go back to the reality of school, tests, and finals, because I enjoyed it that much.

I really do have amazing parents and brother. I don’t know what I’d do without them in my life.

I Love Longs Drugs

After sending out probably over 20 resumes and applying to Walgreens, Target, Costco, Sav-Mart, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Safeway, Stanford Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, random advertisings on Craigslist, going through RX Insider, and local hospitals from Mountain View to Milpitas to Hayward and even to South San Francisco, all I received in return was either silence or that they chose another candidate for the pharmacy technician job position because of this reason:

I'm sorry, you don't have the experience required for the job.

That was it. I had it. I'm going to graduate in 4 weeks and I'm still jobless. I had to go home this recent weekend already to attend Esther's open casket viewing. So, I might as well continue my job hunt. but at this point I was even willing to drive to South San Francisco if I could be a pharm tech so I did something I had never done on Friday afternoon when I got back home from school. I went onto Longs Drugs, typed in my zip code, and found the closest 40 Longs Drugs in a 20-mile radius of my home. I picked up the phone to make the phone call to 22 different Longs Drugs and said:

Me: "Hi, I was wondering if the pharmacy manager is available at the moment?"

Reply: "Yes, hold on a moment/Call back at ____."

Me: "When is the best time I should call back? / Thank you. Hi pharmacy manager, I was wondering if you had any current or future openings for pharmacy technicians?"

Reply: "No, goodbye. / Not at the moment, but we are hiring in June. / You could try the _____ location. / Call the hiring district on Homestead. / Actually, we might be looking for someone. Why don't you come in and fill out an application?"

After taking notes of what happened with each phone call at each location of Longs Drugs, I narrowed down the stores with the only chances of me getting hired...which was only like 5 out of the 22 I called. By the time I got to the 22nd Longs Drugs, I'm getting tired and my brother is wanting to go to the mall. And only 3 of those Longs Drugs asked anything about me beyond the 'hiring in June or a later month' response. My brother finally made the phone call to his gal friend about her parents being pharmacists and if they could help me out. That ultimately fell through as well. The next day, I printed out three copies of my resume and revised huge chunks of it that I realized the career counselor at UOP did not pay much attention to.

I was worried at this point. Really worried. I don't have any experience of being a pharmacy technician and I have no idea what to tell the pharmacists when I knew they were going to ask about past experiences. My parents encouraged me to go to Gilroy to them but I told them that I had to drive to a few Longs Drugs to fill out some applications. A new Coach handbag seemed tempting in my mind but I had to finish this. This was my original plan and goal:

Drive to 3 Longs Drugs, fill out 3 applications, and come back home by 2:ooPM.

So my goal began to fall through when I drove to the first Longs Drugs on my list. The pharmacy technician there was super nice and tried to help me out but the pharmacy manager was gone for the day even though she told me to come in to fill out an application, and the store itself ran out of job applications. I left my resume with them anyway.

Now, here's the good part. Yahoo Maps decided to taunt me by taking me to Homestead Road by giving me the names of 3 streets that did not exist. As a result, I had to call my parents asking them how to get to Homestead Road, because that's where the Longs Drugs Hiring District was. After driving around in circles to find Concord Drive that doesn't exist, trying to call my brother to give me directions but he didn't pick up, and calling my parents who were on their way to Gilroy, I managed to find eventually make it to Homestead Road. Before I continue on my time at Homestead Road, this is the conversation that went on between me and the person on the phone that worked in the hiring district.

Him: "Bring in your resume and we can see where you're needed at which Longs Drugs in this region.
Me: "What time are you open tomorrow?"
Him: "Uhh tomorrow, 10AM to 10PM."
Me: So I can come in tomorrow anytime between that?"
Him: "Umm, yeah."

Slightly disheveled and upset that it took me so long to find Homestead Road, I go inside and spoke to the pharmacy technician.

Me: "Hi, I heard the hiring district is here?"
Pharm Tech: "Yeah, it's closed though. You have to come back Monday. It'll be open then."
Awkward silence.
Me: "OK, I'll figure it out. Thank you."

I turn and was about half-way through the store on my way out when I realized, why don't I just leave my resume here so they can hand it over? I turn around and go back to the pharmacy and just as I go there, I have to wait for the pharmacy technician to finish speaking to one of the patients. For some reason, the pharmacy manager in the back noticed me for the 2nd time and came out asking if there was anything I needed help with. Just when I was about to ask about leaving my resume, I forgot my question so I quickly tried to recover asking:

Me: "Hi, I was wondering if you had any current or future openings for a pharmacy technician?"

Ugh, I could not believe I just asked that. I asked that on the phone yesterday when I called this location and I didn't get the response I wanted. A brief pause of silence settles in and then the pharmacy manager replied:

Pharmacy Manager: "Actually, I think we might need someone. How much experience do you have? Are you still in school? When are you available to work? Do you have your license?"

My jaw was about to fall out of my mouth. Are you kidding me? Oh my goodness, I could not believe what I was hearing but I had to answer honestly and expected the worst. I have no experience, sir, but I really need some experience. That's what I wanted to say but I couldn't so I thought of everything I could to sell myself as a candidate. I'm going to be here all of next year so this won't be just a 2 or 3-month job. I'm going to available on weekdays, weeknights. I can do full-time or part-time. Whatever is most convenient for this pharmacy. And his reply?

Pharmacy Manager: "Let's get the store manager here and have you take the personality test. If you pass that, we can put you through a drug test because it's protocol here and then we can deal with paperwork. We can definitely use you."

I literally wanted to jump up and scream for joy. I'm totally indebt to this pharmacy because they're so willing to give someone out of the blue like me a chance to prove that I can be a good technician despite my lack of experience. I wanted to thank him and jump everywhere and mess things up to show happy I was, but I don't think that would've left the best impression so I simply thanked him and left.

And when I walked out the store, I got to my car, and saw the car keys lying in my front seat.

For the first time in my life, I was so excited about getting a job.

For the first time in my life, I locked myself out of my car. FML.

Initial Goal	Final Goal
Visit 3 Longs Drugs Fill out 3 job applications Give away 3 resumes Be home by 2PM	Visited 2 Longs Drugs Filled out 1 job application Gave away 2 resumes Got home at 4:30PM GOT HIRED!!!

=)

ET

I don't know what to think any more.

I found out at 1:40AM. I haven't even spoken to her since high school but all I can think about now is just how to forget this semester or this year ever happened. The moment I was told about this, the first two words that came to my mind was 'not again'.

I'll come up with something more useful to say next time. I told myself this wasn't a place for this kind of stuff but I don't know where else to put this. Not Facebook although it seems to be convenient for everyone else. One of her friends, Johnny Lazzarini, wrote this on his Facebook:

and i sort of shut down. my bedroom sort of swirled around like somebody had just punched me in the face u know? i had dealt with death loooads of times in my life, pets, family members that kind of thing right. but everybody loses a grandparent at some point, everybody has to face the fact that their dog was hit by a car. we can get over that kind of thing, we eventually understand that thats just sort of how it goes. but when esther died, i realized that what had actually happened meant more then the fact that i couldn't share my life with her anymroe. when she went to college, none of us stayed in the greatest contact with her, and it wasn't just her either. when everybody moved away to start their new lives outside of hs, we really missed out on the part where your supposed to make new friends but keep the old ones you know? well when she died, everybody that knew her felt a nasty shock. how could we miss this? how could we let a change in location ruin all of the relationships we had built up over the years.

i feel like esther's death is sort of making us realize how important it is to cherish each other, and the time that we spend with one another. esther showed me how precious time really is. in an instant her life was claimed by a heart attack, nobody saw it coming. suddenly i wished i could have hung out with her for more then i had, all i would have wanted was a few minutes to tell her how i felt about her and everything she meant to me. a few days ago it was esther, but who knows what tomorrow could bring? could it be me? or you? it is SO important to never forget bonds that you've built. every day you miss talking to somebody who was close to you, you grow further apart. and one day, like i did last night when i recieved the news of esther's passing, you'll look back on how lost everybody is and remind yourself as to how easy it would have been to just make a phone call or send a message.

and, sometimes, ignorance is bliss. i'm not sure why she had a heart attack, i kinda dont want to know, feel me? then i'd just want somebody to blame for her death, whether it was esther or somebody else or god. really that's only going to make mourning her worse, and esther isn't the sort of person who would want us to feel bad about her leaving us. she would want us to keep living life to the fullest, just as she did, living every day like it could be our last so we have no regrets. esther was beautiful inside and out, and the fact that somebody so fantastic could be gone in an instant made me realize how important each and every one of you is to me in the same way. instead of being saddened by her death, let's all celebrate esther's life and remember all the good times we shared. and from now on, to show our respect, let's try our hardest to stay in good contact with each other.

I don't want to think about things like this so soon. If I could, I want to go back to being 15 years old again and getting an A in Algebra 2 be the most difficult thing going on in my life.

Childhood Obsessions: Part 2: Food

I'm not sure how many parts of my childhood I feel like documenting over the next couple journal entries but one thing I want to make sure I had down were traditions before I forget them. These occured during my childhood that faded away over time either because I had grown out of the traditions or my parents and grandparents didn't see the need to continue them any longer because of how our lives had changed since we came to America.

One thing that I do want to remember from my elementary school experiences was how I treated food. Like in my previous entry, I had a great dislike of Chinese foods because of the huge amount I had to consume all the time yet at the same time adored the McDonald's that my parents fed me twice a day along with the cakes and doughnuts I got for breakfast and snacks. It truly is some kind of miracle that I didn't develop Type II Diabetes but as a result, I do have much bigger problems with digestion and going to the bathroom more than anyone else in my family does, along with other digestive tract problems I won't disclose here.

One of the most magical things I discovered when I was young was gum. I treated gum differently then than I do now. This was because yesterday, I bought a pack of gum that I hadn't tried in the longest time and this was the first brand of gum I ever tried (and swallowed).



After this past year of going through countless packets of the endless flavors of Stride, 5, Dentyne, and Eclipse, the moment I popped a piece of Wrigley's in my mouth, the soft creamy sensation sent me straight back to 2nd grade when I cycled around the driveways of the town houses in San Jose as my super old grandparents stood outside and yelled at their friends in Chinese to stay for a few more hours. It was one of the most nostalgic feelings I had in the longest time and it made me miss a lot of the traditions I had in my childhood, which is totally a whole different entry. So this moment solidified that I will not be satisfied with any other gum unless if it's the cheap 25 cent gum from Wrigley's and it will actually stay in my mouth for more thatn 5 minutes.

The second childhood comfort food that I had was one thing that my mom often made then but doesn't make much of anymore. It was the combination of having Bovril and porridge. Since the whole Mad Cow Disease fiasco in Europe, Bovril had to change the composition of its extract from yeast instead of bovine. The extract would be added to the porridge and I would drink bowls of this at a time like it was water. It was the one Chinese dish I liked as a child, and the repeated exposure to Bovril made it that to this day, I cannot have rice or porridge unless it's been overdosed with condiments.



The next thing on the list was sugar doughnuts and Chinese pastries that my mom often brought back from work because the someone at work always brought too many in, and because my parents really struggled with finances when we first came to the States, all of these sorts of foods were inexpensive and made it easy for us to fill our stomachs up quickly before we could manage to eat out all the time like we do now.

Despite all of the different flavors of doughnuts that I encountered during high school and even the Krispy Kreme phase, my absolute favorite is still the sugar doughnut, followed by the cheap glazed kind. Not the kind that Krispy Kreme kind where the layers were perfect, but the kind where the glaze fell off the doughnut when you picked it up and the layer was barely noticeable on the piece itself.



Then, came the Chinese pastries that my mom often ordered every time we went to Ranch 99 Supermarket. The Swiss roll came in many different flavors like vanilla and strawberry. I was always arguing with my mom at ends about which one to pick because my mom preferred vanilla, while I preferred strawberry. She usually ended up having her way because it was her money.



There are two other ones I signficantly remember: flavored bread and this one cake where one side was chocolate, the other side was white, and was sealed in the middle by a thin layer of vanilla cream. I remember always eating the chocolate side first (or not eating it at all) and then save the vanilla part as the best for last. I never liked the flavored bread that much as a kid so I never ended up snacking on it like my mom hoped I would.

An honorable mention to this list of childhood comfort foods I had was the white pomfret that my mom often ordered grilled from the Chinese supermarket. This is still probably my favorite fish because of the influences I had from my childhood. Chinese dinner would be the best in the entire world when the white pomfret was involved and it was something I always requested from my parents whenever I could.



Lastly, was the classic McDonald's Happy Meal that never let me down. I always had to get the toy that came with the package and the cheery M signs never ceased to make my day. It was the standard: hamburger/cheeseburger, fries, and a small drink that I had for lunch AND after school. I would also go to McDonald's or Burger King for breakfast (although BK was more of a breakfast tradition) and try to collect as many of the Monopoly pieces as I possibly could hoping one day to win something greater than a medium-sized soft drink. That never happened. However, I remember there being this one McDonald's in Sunnyvale that I would go to all the time as a child and everyone in there remembered me by name and had my order ready before my dad could pull the car up to the drive-thru window.



I remember also arguing with my parents every time I ever decided to get the 6-piece chicken nuggets. My parents would only get me Sweet-and-Sour sauce, which I was accustomed to until my friends in elementary school introduced to me BBQ sauce. For some reason, my parents didn't like that and again, they usually ended up having it their way where I ended up dipping all my food in Sweet-and-Sour sauce but when they're not around, the BBQ sauce returns. Another quirk I had as a child was also removing the pickle in the center of the hamburger whenever I could. I never liked vegetables in my sandwiches for some reason, and having a pickle in there disrupted the balance.

McDonald's breakfast was also a slice of heaven especially since I every time I went there, I would have my predictable combination of 1 Apple Pie and 2 hashbrowns or just as many hashbrowns as I could handle. I loved both Burger King's and McDonald's and often couldn't decide between the two, but I was never sold on the pancakes and the Egg McMuffin's. I felt sick when I ate them as a child so my options were pretty limited then and it frustrated my parents seeing that I preferred just a pile of hashbrowns rather than a sandwich, the same way that I preferred a pile of French fries over a hamburger (even though I enjoyed both just as much).



In addition, the French Toast sticks at Burger King was also another comfort food, and those are something I'm sorely missing today, which is why I probably compensate every time I go to Denny's. I always end up ordering French toast no matter how bad it was for me. And I always ran out of syrup.

Childhood Obsessions: Part 1: Beanie Babies

Something that used to intrigue me when I was younger (and still somewhat has a strange spell over me) were stuffed animals. I remember that when I was a kid, I used to tell my parents that the reason why people had a lifelong fascination with stuffed animals was because they mimicked life. They had a face that we could relate to so we feel that something intangible is staring back at us whenever we look into their black beady eyes. My parents probably thought I was crazy and just gave me more stuffed animals to have fun with.

Out of all the stuffed animals though, only select groups really grabbed my attention. The biggest focus of this entry though will reside with the infamous Beanie Babies of the late 90's. I have over a 100 of them and have probably spent more than $2000 worth on them because of the current hype and my dad's unusual fixation with wanting to buy everything as a collection, which is why he has stacks of completely useless books like Paganism, Dog Dictionaries, and Heraldry in his office and at home that have only served the purpose of collecting dust. He bought into the hype like I did and also spent that extra hundreds of dollars keeping the majority of my Beanie Babies in those plastic cases because they were all 'future investments'.

Even though I hardly recognize any of the new Beanie Babies that were out, these ones that I bought were my very first ones and they will always have a special place. One of them was unfortunately stolen back in 5th grade, but I'll always remember the original two that started it all.
These two are my ultimate two out of my three favorites because not only did they start it all, I took these two everywhere with me. They had a meaning that was more special for this than any of the other ones that my parents got me. Ironically, I don't have Zip, the black cat, at all because it was stolen so long ago. For some reason, I never ended up replacing it.

Then, came the Teenie Beanie Babies promotion that was run at McDonald's. I don't think I ever had so much McDonald's in my life and I don't quite remember if I collected all 10 that everyone went crazy searching for. I just remember people being super excited about trying to collect all 10 Teenie Beanie Babies and throwing away the McDonald's food in the process. Incidents like this was only support that I should have ate myself into Type II Diabetes but miraculously it never came, and soon after the promotion was over, I stopped going to McDonald's for a while.

Several other Beanie Babies had a special signficance for me because of the context that surrounded their purchases. Therefore, here's a list of Beanie Babies I've valued over all the others for different reasons. Zip and Inch.

Scottie was the black terrier that my dad's father bought for me when my dad refused to in front of all our relatives. My grandfather decided to act like a grandfather and spoiled me with getting Scottie. I remember I didn't even like this one that much but because he got it for me, I've always reembered that act of grandfather-liness that this one had more meaning than the other ones did.
Bubbles was one of the more prized possessions of my Beanie Babies because of it's value and how I discovered the art of deception by making an unfair trade with one of my friends to obtain it. Around the time when Pokemon first started emerging into the scene, my dad returned from Taiwan with a bunch of unreleased Pokemon games (versions Gold and Silver) in Japanese. My guy friend in 5th grade, Garron, wanted the untranslated Pokemon games so badly and I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted Bubbles or Goldie (the two original fish). Of course, the deception was that I didn't tell him that I had another set of the untranslated Pokemon games, so I hyped up the trade as if I would be on the losing end if the trade were to happen. He agreed and every time I look at Bubbles, I think of how I had successfully and hilariously at the length I had gone to commit my first significant act of lying and deceiving a friend.

The next few were ones that I adored regardless of the reasons I bought them. There was something about them that made me completely infatuated with them from Day 1, and whenever I dig through my closet and lay eyes on them, the same feelings I felt from the moment I bought them could be felt today.

My mom was vehemently against my purchase of Beanie Babies that my dad and I would often have to hide them from her authority. However, there were two that she had bought for me. Ziggy was bought at the San Francisco International Airport when we were waiting for my dad to return from an overseas business trip and Nanook was bought at a store next to my mom's favorite store, Ross. Nanook doesn't really quite make the list but the signficance is the same to me.

The last four that make up the list that really sort of defined my collection was Princess Di and Brittania. Princess Di was the most my dad has ever allowed me to spend on a Beanie Baby. I don't think he ever told me the real price of it, because every time I've asked him, the number always seemed to change. It went from $50 to $100 and one time, I could've sworn he said $150. To date, it was the most I ever spent on a bag of beans, and it's my third most prized bear that my dad has given to me. Britannia was the one Beanie teddy that I had always coveted but was never able to have until many years later. I have a long wish list of Beanies that I still wished to have but none of them reached to the level I wanted from Britannia.


Valentino and Erin are in their own categories not because one of them had a name that reminded me today of a familiar couture designer that I happen to worship every season, but because Valentino was my first Beanie Baby teddy bear. I remember buying it for $20 at the Sunnyvale Mall at a store that is beyond bankrupt and closed by now. Erin was the 2nd most I had ever spent on a Beanie Baby that my dad had to buy from a colleague for $70 because she was sold out everywhere at that time. As much as this was a sign that I was probably way too spoiled for my own good, I really appreciated today how much my dad was willing to go out of his way to be ripped off by his own colleague to make sure I was happy with getting the Beanie Babies that everyone else wanted. I can't imagine doing this for my own kids but it makes me appreciate these select few even more.



It's funny how I did crazy things in my childhood experiences but I felt that the Beanie Babies I bought were proof that my parents had it in them to really believe that there was a face to each Beanie Baby, which made them so unique and that we strived so mcuh to have them all together in one collection. Of course, we were never able to achieve that but it was certainly fun at that time, and it did bring us together somewhat over all the many Happy Meals and the many conventions we went to that sold these things.