My best friend Vanessa nominated me to Liebster Award. Thank you!!
The rules for this award are as follows:
- answer 11 questions set by your nominee,
- share 11 facts about yourself,
- write 11 new questions of your own, and
- pass the award (up) to 11 other bloggers to answer your questions
Let’s see Vanessa’s questions for me:
1) What has inspired you most recently? (to write, cook, dream, whatever)
Keith Ferrazzi! I just finished his first book Never Eat Alone, which is very inspiring. It’s about building a trustworthy relationship with others. Many of us are not aware that we live dependently and do rely on others. It’s no shame to admit that at all because it is true. The book also brought back a lot of memories and turning points of my life so far, thought I am only 23 year old. I am only 23; but I have lived by myself for the past five years. I have been responsible. Now the I have one more task: to establish my career in Public Relations.
As for cooking, I have been living on budget. I shop whatever that’s on sale. I have had a potato week, a soup week and a fried rice week so far.
2) If you had to live in the fantasy/sci fi/whatever world of ANY book, which would it be?
Peter Pan, “to grow up, it’s an adventure.”
Of course, growing up is when you realize you will lose everything and everybody you love eventually. Growing up means more responsibilities. However, I would like to be Wendy. Growing up is making a lot of decisions. While making decisions, it’s about selecting one and giving up the other, hoping the selected is the right way and fun way. I have grown up so much in the past three years because I had to deal with everything by and for myself. My family is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, which means even if they take the soonest flight, it’d still take two days.
Growing up means independence, a great feeling that children will not have and understand.
3) What was your favorite book as a child?
I don’t remember reading much as a child, to be honestly with you. But I like Cinderella and Snow White. I remember flipping through the pictures until the pages were ripped apart. I think I still have those books in my bookshelf back home.
I started reading a lot of fictions from sixth grade to high school. A lot of them. I read them in science classes and during nap time. I read up to four books a month back then. A lot of them are modern Chinese literature and fiction.
4) What is the most embarrassing thing that you have written/drawn/created?
I wrote the first love fiction when I was in fifth or sixth grade. The characters were the popular Japanese boy band W-inds. The story was about eight pages and posted on a fan page back then. People actually liked it. Oh teenage girls… (I’m referring the 10-year-old me)
5) When you think of your childhood, what is the first food that you think of?
Too Many! My grandma’s cooking is the taste of my childhood.
My grandma’s a great cook. She can’t fail making any food basically. I love her soups, eggplant pancake, and honey wings, etc. I grew up with my cousins and grandma when I was younger because my parents were busy then. My grandma would make a lot of food and soup for us as afternoon snacks after lunch, and of course dinner as well.
6) Why do you blog?
I just write. There’s no specific answers to this question. I always enjoy writing. Blogging is just another form of writing. I write reports as a journalism student. I write research papers as a history miner student. I write press pitches as a marketing intern. I write blogs and journals as Karen, as myself, to share who I am and what I do. Blogging is a form of sharing, as I see it.
7) What animal would you consider your animal spirit and why?
I will definitely be a cat.
Cats are loving but also independent. Unlike dogs, cats don’t need much attention. Having a cat at home is like having a friend. But having a dog is equivalent to having a child. I am a child at heart and can’t take care of another child. I sometimes wonder what will happen when I have my own kids. I will probably raise them like I raise my cat. Let them grow up themselves by pointing them the right direction.
8) What is one thing that you wish you could do athletically that you can’t? (for example, lift heavy things/dance beautifully/run 5 miles/etc.)
I can’t swim the butterfly style.
Swimming is the only workout I do in the past three years. I barely run these days. I don’t like my calves. The butterfly is something I always wanted to learn but failed because I have a weird tempo (a reason that I can’t dance either).
9) What is a sound that you love?
Meow! I can’t resist any cats.
When I can afford myself and settle down, I will keep a cat. That’s one of my long term goals. The oldest kitty I have back home in China is 9 years old. Few weeks ago, my mom told me she just gave birth to a few new kittens. She’s a mom at the age of a grandmother. She was my dad’s birthday back then. We picked her up with a little box from my mom’s friend’s grocery store. She remembers me still today.
10) What do you love most about your life right now?
I like that I can cook for myself.
When I was working before, I barely had time to myself. But now as I am looking for other career opportunities, I cook after I finish my day in library. My day is to send out job applications, do internship work, read, and write everyday.
11) Summer or Winter?
Summer, no doubt at all.
Illinois has evilly hot and humid summer that I find myself melting outdoor and freezing in the air-conditioned indoor. Then winter is way worse because temperature will drop to 30s and 40s in October (NOW!!!), then go below 32 in november, and it won’t go back up to 50s until June. Winter in Illinois is eight months long. I still love Chicago. Sometimes I doubt it because of the winter tho.
11 facts about myself:
1. I actually prefer people call me Karen in America, instead of trying to pronounce Jiayun. It could totally sound like different things when you mispronounce it. So just call me Karen.
My Eyore and White Whale!
2. I like hugging my Eyore or White Whale to sleep. Eyore has been with me since 2006. I bought him from a Disney store in New York City when I first visited there.
3. I like documentaries more than movies, if I had to pick one. I took a film 101 in college, which broke down the production of movies and films. Now when I watch a movie, I know why it’s popular, why it’s filmed that way, what the next story plot is, and how audience would be convinced, etc. So there’s not much fun for me to watch movies. That’s why I like documentaries more. But I can destroy the fun for you as well because I also took an environment documentary class in college. It was then I learned not all documentaries are objective, history, and factual.
4. I am a BIG apple fan. I used iPhone and MacBook Air. If I had money, I would probably buy an iPad mini.
(I also converted Vanessa into iPhone and MacBook not too long ago.)
5. I have a high body temperature. But my feet are always cold in winter. The UGG boot insole sometimes are quite cold because of my cold feet.
6. I am a diet freak. Not that I am on diet all the time, but I try to eat healthy as often as possible. I try to have meals at a regular routine. No more snacks after 8 p.m. And I try not to eat fast food or junk food. Once in a while I give in and eat Taco Bell or Burger King. But that’s probably two times each year.
7. This is my second year of having a Moleskine annual planner, and I absolutely love it. In fact, I just bought my 2014 planner last week.
8. Food wise, I can’t resist most of the seafood. Scallops, crab, shrimp, shellfish, jellyfish, abalone, mantis shrimp and salmon. Whenever I go back home, my mom and I would go to the seafood market and buy them alive. Fresh seafood is the best!
9. Red is my favorite color. My favorite color combo is red and red and red.
10. I have been to 25 states in the past five years, half of the United States.
11. Yet, I have been to more places in the U.S. than in China. What a shame… :(
Here come the questions for you:
1. What was the one thing that you have done that it’s so out of your comfort zone?
2. If you get to live Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in either Inception or Shutter Island, which one would you pick?
3. What’s the most awkward moment with you and your date?
4. What is that one thing you regret for doing, or not having done, in the past five years?
5. Show me your favorite shoes of your collection and tell me the story of it. (Either you get them for an awesome deal or a great gift from friends or family)
6. What do you blog?
7. What is the best joke you’ve heard in the past week? Who told you that?
8. What do you love most about your life now?
9. What are you dressing up for this Halloween? And, any specific reason for picking this outfit?
10. What is the most recent book you’ve read in the last month?
11. Among all the places you have been to all your life, which one is your favorite trip?
THE Karen 