…Well, 30 days until I leave for Shanghai, China. But I have a feeling it’s going to be a life-altering experience. I’m starting to get scared thinking about it. Studying abroad is a dream that I’ve had since high school and now that I’m only a month away from accomplishing that goal, I’m beginning to feel rather anxious. It doesn’t feel real somehow, to think that in exactly one month, I will be on a totally different continent, surrounded by a mostly homogeneous population. The metropolitan area around Shanghai itself has a jaw-dropping 20 million people. I cannot fathom the reality of that number. One of my friends just returned from studying abroad in Beijing for six months and this is what she told me:

The scale of 1.3 billion Chinese people doesn’t really quite register in your head until you come to China and see traffic congestion 24 hours a day, crowded subways, people cutting in line, people spitting everyone, etc.

I’ve literally never been out of the country before. For the past twenty years since I was born, my feet have been firmly planted in the United States of America. I’ve barely even left good old Texas, except for vacations to California, Florida, New York, etc, but those were at most week-long excursions where I happily returned home at the conclusion of the trip. But this study abroad trip is different: I’m going to be in a totally different country for four months, where there’s no such thing as freedom of speech and sites like Facebook and Youtube are blocked.

I think that may be part of why I’m freaking out – I’m used to living an American lifestyle shaped by the rights afforded to me by the U.S. Constitution, and more importantly, the Bill of Rights. Now that I’m actually taking the time to think about it, I’ve always taken for granted the fact that I have the ability to speak my mind and say whatever I want. Just being able to blog freely about my thoughts right now is not something that everyone in the world can do, whether it is due to technological or ideological limitations. I can’t imagine living in a society where censorship is the rule rather than the exception, where AIM messages may be monitored and search engine results filtered, but that is what I’ve been told to expect when I arrive in China and the idea just doesn’t sit well with me.

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Autumn’s Concerto (Next Stop, Happiness) is my favorite new drama! It’s still airing in Taiwan right now but you can watched subbed episodes at Sugoideas or on Viikii. Taiwanese drama lovers might recognize Vanness Wu of F4 fame from Meteor Garden. He’s got a totally new (and incredibly hot!) look with the short hair and his acting has definitely improved a lot. He puts so much heart into the character of Ren Guang Xi that you can’t help but fall in love. I’ve never watched Ady An in a drama before but she’s a very talented actress as Liang Mu Cheng too, not to mention adorable little Xiao Xiao Bin, who plays Xiao Le.

The storyline itself contains several cliches that we’ve all seen in Asian dramas before (thankfully no one dies in this one!) but the chemistry between Ady An and Vanness Wu makes it a beautiful and moving story to watch and I found myself unable to stop. I flew through the first 13 episodes in two days, and the 14th episode just aired today! Like I said before, it’s currently still airing in Taiwan right now (and capturing first place in ratings!) but the episodes are usually subbed within a day or two so us non-Chinese speaking viewers can happily follow along too. That’s actually why I started looking for a new drama to watch; I’ll be studying abroad in Shanghai starting in February and I wanted to keep reviewing and listening to Chinese to prepare myself. I can understand bits and pieces as I watch the drama now, but I still need subs to fully understand everything ^^;

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Woot! I have reached the end of November for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and I’m proud of myself. However, it’s made me realize a few things. Writing a blog a day was a nice exercise but I don’t think it’s something I’d take up regularly. Some days, I just couldn’t find anything meaningful to talk about, or I would be too drained from classes and research earlier in the day to type out the kind of entry that I wanted. I’ll admit that there were days where I would ramble about something just to get an entry done or post a Flickr picture and write up a little blurb about it because I was feeling lazy, like last night. I think I’ll just stick to blogging whenever I have something thoughtful to say (or more importantly, when I have the time to write out my thoughts about the subject).

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Dix Sept Sweet Love Sticker Sack
Originally uploaded by xiwang.love

I’m feeling lazy tonight so I’m just going to share a picture of one of my favorite kawaii sticker sacks. This is made by a company called Dix Sept and it features puddings and cakes and other delicious treats. I love their smiling faces. They look so happy and yummy! I ordered three or four extras just because I love this sack so much.

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Waiting
Originally uploaded by xiwang.love

This is my boyfriend’s miniature dachshund, Udon, sitting on top of our couch by the window as she waits for him to come home from grocery shopping. She’s still a little puppy (almost nine months old now!) and she gets a little anxious when he leaves. Sometimes she’ll drag her toys up onto the couch so she can play with them while she waits, heehee.

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