Older siblings are usually charged with teaching their younger sisters or brothers the ways of the world–and I should know: I, myself, am an older sister, and had taken on that great responsibility at a very early age.

Being almost 4 years older, I had accumulated a vast library of knowledge by the time my younger sister was born: Oreo cookies are best eaten when they’re soggy; “Sesame Street” is the best show ever; getting a time-out will ruin your life–things everyone must know in order to achieve success.

I also taught my sister important survival skills:

And kept her updated on the latest news:

By teaching my sister all that I knew, I was essentially giving her a head start on the competition. So when she entered preschool, she was already at college-level smartness while everyone else was still learning how to read. And when she was awarded all her academic scholarships and landed an amazing job, I knew without a doubt that her successes didn’t come because she worked really hard for many, many years. No, it was all thanks to me.

I’ve never been good at keeping schedules. My life has pretty much revolved around “Why do something today when you can do it tomorrow?”—which isn’t the way the phrase goes, and definitely isn’t the best rule to live by. That, however, was exactly the way I did everything, including blogging. And I never bothered to ask myself whether my lackadaisical attitude had any consequences.

I finally figured out that being so unreliable is a horrible way to live. But I didn’t realize this until someone close to me passed away. He was only 7 months old; he probably didn’t even understand what death was. And yet, even though he was so young, he was able to maximize every single day of his life. There was no such thing as “do it tomorrow.” It was all about “today.”

He did so much with what little time he had, and for me to go on living by my old mantra after he died would be a terrible insult. So from here on out, I’m going to do my best to live like him: no more “why do something today when you can do it tomorrow;” no more close calls with deadlines; no more indifference to the reality that my unreliability affects others.

It might sound a little off that someone’s passing would inspire me to blog more, but blogging—no, Xanga—is a huge part of my life. It’s where I can be myself and write all the things I can’t say. And all of you awesome members of the Xanga community—you made me the blogger I am today; you gave my writing new life. To think that all my crazy ideas could connect me to people who not only took the time to read my posts, but also found them entertaining, was something I never thought was possible.

My decision to switch course and move in a better, more productive direction means ultimately changing myself and the way I do things—and I believe it is for the best. So expect many more posts and many more pictures to start showing up from this point forward because I now understand that I don’t just write for me—I write for Xanga. And I’m so, so sorry it took me this long to figure it out.

Thanks for always being there,

Sylvia

I took piano lessons for 10 years–pretty standard for an Asian, huh? Ask any of us whether we’ve ever taken music lessons, and you’re going to hear a “yes” for either piano or some string instrument (most likely the cello).

My sister and I had weekly lessons at our piano teacher’s house. Our mother would drop us off after school, and would return to pick us up after we were finished. Neither of us liked practicing, and we were often scolded for our poor performances. On days when we were particularly disappointing, our teacher would drag out our lessons from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. I was so bad I once had to sit there for almost 3 hours. My sister and I tried to find ways to cut our lessons short–like, if she was first to get her session over with, she would immediately call my mom and tell her to come pick us up. And then my mom would end up arriving 30 minutes into my lesson, and we would get to go home early.  It worked a few times, but after awhile my mom figured out what we were doing and stopped unknowingly helping us cut class. But we still kept the routine going just in case.

During one of our lessons, I had some sort of brain fart and did something really dumb. I’ve tried to find an explanation for this seemingly sudden onset of retardation, but ever after so many years, I still come up empty.

Here’s what happened: My sister was having her lesson, and I (after immediately calling my mom) was waiting to be picked up. To pass the time, I start flipping through a few of the “National Geographic” magazines my teacher had on her coffee table.

While looking for pictures of animals, a folded-up insert fell out of the magazine.

It turned out to be a diagram of Africa’s native animals.

That is such a sh*tty picture, I know. I tried to make it less sh*tty by using basic shapes to draw the animals, but I could only draw an elephant (yes, that’s supposed to be an elephant) and giraffe. Including any more animals would turn an already turdy picture into a massive mess of Paint waste.

I really wanted that diagram. It just looked so cool–with all the little animal pictures placed on the map according to their native regions. Why, if I had something like that, I’d tape it to my bedroom wall and look at it all the time!

And then, I had a brilliant idea!

Using the magazine as a cover, I took that folded-up diagram, slipped it under my shirt (I know I drew myself wearing a dress, but imagine it’s a T-shirt), and held it under my armpit so that it wouldn’t fall out when I moved. Mwahaha! That diagram was now mine! Mine! And now I’ll always know where most African crocodiles live, and which territories belong to lions and zebras!

I was so excited that I couldn’t contain my joy when my mom arrived.

And this is when I had that brain fart. For some reason, I thought I could show my mom the fruits of my labor–that she would see this diagram I freaking stole and wouldn’t be mad at all. In fact, I actually thought she’d find that little map of Africa and its animals so interesting she’d let the larceny slide.

But I was very, very mistaken.

And it wasn’t until seconds after I took the diagram out from under my shirt that I realized I had just told my mom I was a thief–a really stupid thief who shows off the stuff she steals to her own mother.

My stupidity was so embarrassing that I couldn’t bring myself to look at the map ever again. I think it’s still sitting in my piano bench, buried beneath piles of sheet music–a constant reminder of a random act of retardation that still haunts me.

My Facebook activity has been reduced from “slim-to-none” to just “none” ever since my first foreign exchange student intern went crazy after reading the many sh*tty status updates posted by the 3 Facebook Whores on my “friends” list. So I’ve been trying to find an intern this whole time, and was on the verge of completely giving up when I finally found someone who met all the requirements I was looking for. He had an impressive resume full of such glowing achievements like being a foreign exchange student that I immediately called him in for an interview.

Having gone through many job interviews in the past, I’ve learned that coolness is everything. Even if you’re hopelessly uncool, you should never let the person you’re interviewing know you as anything other than the coolest interviewer ever. Getting the interviewed person to believe you are way cooler than him will establish your position as his superior if he gets the job.

My method of accomplishing such extreme coolness is to have CNBC on in the background during the interview–because CNBC stands for “Cable Network that Boosts Coolness.” So of course I had it on during my interview with the potential candidate–which went well enough that I decided to give him the job. But before I put him to work, I wanted to tell him about the perks of being my new foreign-exchange student intern:

Thanks to my sudden ability to property think on my feed, I finally had a new intern who could check my Facebook for me–which I had him start on immediately.

Of course it’s busy. A news feed always is if you’re “friends” with Facebook Whores. Those freaks will go so far as post an update about blinking their eyes, so I braced myself for my intern’s report to be full of crap like, “X just woke up” or “Y is bored.”

A, B, and C? Who are they again? Oh! They must not be Facebook Whores! No wonder their updates didn’t give me that explosive-doot feeling!

It must’ve been my lucky day to have the report not start with something about X, Y, and Z, but I was sure the rest of the news feed would be all about them.

OMG! None of the updates were from the Facebook Whores! Not a single one! Everything posted on the news feed had something to do with how A, B, and C were planning their weddings. Did X, Y, and Z change their names? Were they dead? Was I in the Twilight Zone?

I realized the answer was “none of the above,” even though I had no idea how I knew this. There was just something about A, B, and C that sounded familiar to me for some reason…like I actually kind of, sort of knew them from somewhere, somehow.

And then it hit me!

That’s why I kind of, sort of recognized their names! I went to school with them, and they were always hanging out together with a few other girls. And suddenly their aggressive wedding-planning posts made sense:

Don’t laugh at my volcanoes. They were hard to draw.

Yes, A, B, and C were embroiled in a Wedding War, and were trying to kick the crap out of each other with their silly posts. What’s a “Wedding War” you ask? Hmm…well, it’s like when a kid wants an action figure—say, Leonardo from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”—because the rest of his friends have one, and he doesn’t want to be left out. So his parents buy him a Leonardo and the kid is back to fitting in with his friends. But the harmony doesn’t last very long because the kids start realizing that they all have Leonardos—and you just can’t play “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” with four Leonardos. That obviously means 3 of the kids are going to have to turn their action figures into poor-man’s versions of Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.

But how do you decide which kid’s Leonardo gets to be the actual Leonardo when they’re all the same? It’s simple: you have to make yours look better than everyone else’s, and you do that by getting your parents to buy additional accessories and action figures (but not those of the turtles because that’s what the other kids’ Leonardos are for). And then you bring your stockpile of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” toys to the playground, and the other kids will suddenly figure out the message you’re sending: if they want to play with the Shredder or Master Splinter action figures or use the Turtlevan that opens up into a pizza parlor or whatever, they will have to let your Leonardo be the Leonardo.

A Wedding War is pretty much the same thing, except you’ve got a group of single, adult women instead of kids, and the battle is over who will have the better wedding instead of the better Leonardo action figure. And really, if you didn’t think A, B, and C’s Facebook antics were indicative of a Wedding War, then this will probably be enough to convince you: After her engagement, A changed her profile picture to this:

But after B announced she was engaged, A’s picture became this:

Isn’t that just so “I’m going to have a better wedding than you, b*tch!”? I bet she could’ve achieved greater subtlety if she simply took a dump on B’s face.

I get it: a wedding is a big deal for a girl. You get to wear the dress, carry the flowers, walk down the aisle—all while you’re the center of everyone’s world. It’s the moment you’ve been dreaming about for as long as you can remember, so of course you’re going to be jealous when you find out that it’s your friend—not you—who’s getting married first. That b*tch is totally stealing your moment from you! That’s just wrong, and you can’t let her get away with it! So you’re just going to have to get married too—and you know your wedding is going to be so much more impressive and memorable that your friend’s because weddings are your thing, not hers!

…Just kidding. I don’t get it. Who cares if your friend is getting married before you? Who cares if all of your friends get married before you? That’s not a reason to get married. And how does that make sense anyway? “I’m going to get married someday…someday being when my friends do.” Hello! That sh*t is expensive—and quite honestly, no one is going to remember your wedding besides you and your family. You might think you’re being original but trust me, you’re not. Your wedding is going to look like everyone else’s, so maybe you should just calm down and—I don’t know—get married because you actually want to.

I’m not against marriage or weddings. I just don’t understand why some girls go crazy when they find out their friends are getting hitched first. If you can see how stupid the kids were in wanting their own Leonardo, then how come you can’t see the same stupidity when we’re talking about weddings?