Shakespeare According to Tian

I've been thinking about the following lines from Prince Hal's famous monologue in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 quite a bit lately:

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents (events).

(1.2.198-201; Bevington. Necessary Shakespeare)

This isn't the main point of Hal's pontification; it is used to add greater depth and support to his argument that he is purposely being a type of prodigal son: bad now so that when he does change it will have greater impact upon those he associates with.

And, now Princess Tian will add her two bits.

It's like when you don't wear make-up or really don't do your hair for a couple weeks. You resort to jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes everyday and look somewhat like a vagabond. (Do you always think of Elton John when you hear that word? I do. And not because I think he's a vagabond. Music, people, music.) And then...you get dolled up one day and everyone tells you you're beautiful when really you look normal but they're latest impression of you has been terrible and so they honestly are quite taken aback by your appearance in the best of ways.

Well, that's all for today. Stay tuned for the next episode of Shakespeare according to Tian where we discuss how Will S. totally knew Rowling would be a bestseller.

Yi Fu de Wen Ti

I am currently wearing a very worn and faded navy blue skirt that almost hits my ankles and was worn probably twice a week in Taiwan for a year and a half with a light blue polo work shirt accompanied by a brown camisole underneath and bottomed-off with old black sandal wedges that are fraying at the toe from Payless. Which leads me to ask myself: Am I a fashion victim? Could I be chosen for TLC's What Not to Wear? Do others pass me by and sigh regretfully?


NO! (well sometimes I really am a fashion victim, but considering my upbringing, ahem hand-me-downs, you can't really blame me.)


I suffer from what I am now calling the "de-auto mobilized starving student syndrome." I, like the majority of mankind, have to work despite being a full-time student. And I don't own a vehicle, nor do I wish to at this point of my Tian existence. Every morning I sweatily ride my bike to work. (I mention sweatily because it's uphill the entire way.) However, I of course have a work dress code which means I can't wear denim, shorts, or anything that normal students wear.

Now, one of my special talents is riding a bike in a skirt but when I crossed that great blue mass of the Pacific Ocean I turned in my cute yellow girl bike, named Grandma in Taiwanese, with the low cross bar, front basket, and back rack in for a two-toned mountain bike with NO BASKET, no name, and an incredibly high cross bar. (I mustn't dismiss that it has new wheels though, thanks to Podly who likes to dote on the daughters that don't live with him.) Needless to say, mounting this anonymous jiao ta che (bike) in a skirt would prove fatal.


So, everyday I subject myself to ugliness. Beauty knows no pain...and ugliness...does. I use to be such a fashionable person, and then HeiderHead moved to Texas and took all her clothes. Ahhh, now, not only do we know that I am fashionably handicapped (which I heard isn't PC to use that term anymore) but I am a leech. Hum. I should stop writing now before I tell you that I usually wait for someone to invite me to be their friend on Facebook just so they realize how much they need me, and not vice versa.


That all finally released from my special place of pent up frustration, it is obvious that everyday I have to wear two outfits. (Now, if I were still in high school this wouldn't be extreme by any means because I used to wear 'like' four outfits a day.)