Allow Me to Digress

My friend Che is the first "Friends" fan I’ve met.  I remember back in college, she would say she was glad it was a Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) that she could watch "Friends" again on TV.  Then the following day or so, she would say something about Chandler being really funny, and Monica doing this and that, and other stuff that really didn’t make much sense to me because I was not interested in "Friends" (What did I watch on TV then? I seldom watched TV, maybe I was too busy studying I’m sorry, Che! haha :)  Finally, after 4 years, I have understood you.  Oh, Che is also the reason why I like musical plays!  She lent me her Miss Saigon CDs (or were those tapes?) and I fell in love with the songs.

Miss Saigon would be one whole topic that would be too long to discuss here.  I better go back to "Friends."  I discovered "Friends" two years ago… and back then I sort of have a "feeling Friends" time with some friends who would hang out in our flat. It was the best apartment ever! On lonely days I would just watch "Friends" - which was also a part of my Chinese review - by reading the Mandarin subtitles.  I am not making an excuse!  How do you say "Don’t be too hard on yourself" in Mandarin?  I learned it from "Friends" and here is how it was translated:

Bie gei ni ziji taida de yali! 别给你自己太大的压力！(Literal translation, don’t give yourself too much pressure.)

Friends (Laoyouji 老友记or Liurenxing 六人行) is a very famous English learning tool in China.  Good thing I have started watching "Friends" when I encountered some students who would talk to me about it.  And to some students who were asking for tips or pieces of advice on learning English, I tell them to watch English movies and "Friends" of course! (What a teacher! Such wisdom! haha :)  Ok, those were the stressful days when my acting skills were challenged because I had to act as if English were my first language.

Now, I am back to those days, lonely days, and still, "Friends" never fails to give me a laugh or two! (but not on weekends)  They’re like my imaginary friends in this place where I’m almost friendless.  I’m going nuts! Please send me home! (This is a distress call to my dear family. Hehe

Which "Friend" am I?  I’m definitely not a Monica, and not fashion conscious as Rachel.  Therefore, Phoebe is who’s left and she’s who I got in the test I took.

Aileen, you’re a bit like Phoebe!

Um, ok! You’re, like Phoebe. Ok, so you may not have Phoebe’s, well, special intuition or, um, musical talent. But, like everyone’s favorite beautiful-blond-psychic-masseuse, you never lie and your friends are the most important thing in your life. With an utterly free spirit like yours, some people see you as flaky. But creative, perceptive-as-heck, and eerily wise is more like it. You see the good in everyone, which could make your dating life a bit, well, uneven. But you always land on your feet with your humor, kindness, (and who-knows-what-from-beyond) as your guide.

There’s some truth to that, don’t you think so?  The not-so-true part is the "you never lie" part.  Hahaha:)  Not that I lie… I just love to pretend I’m lying perhaps. Hahaha:)  You might want to take the test too!  Here’s the link: http://web.tickle.com/tests/friend/?test=friendogt

This post is for my friend Che (Ciao!), who is a very private person (doesn’t have a Friendster account), but reads my blogs because I ask her to.  She does give me nice feedback too!  Che, I like it when you said you can relate to my "Blogging Principle" and the little discussion we had about it.  Hahaha

This is also for my 601 fangjian friends Aimee, Debbie, KV, Vanessa, Ian, and Steve.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Entertaining Stuff Other Than Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.