When I started thinking about it, I had no clue of what kind of New Year resolutions to create this year. Or how to make sure I don’t break them.

There’s always so many things I need to do, and a year is such little time to make so many dreams come true in. I managed to finish last year’s resolutions because I kept everything realistic, even though I dreamt a lot when I made them. It must sound a bit silly, but instead of in a blur in the beginning of January and then start trying to solve them right away, I usually make them proper and realistic as the year goes on. They start out as dreams for the new year, and then I shape them into something do-able. Y’know, and then I make myself a list of all the smaller pieces and parts I need to do to get the big dream come true.

50 small dreams are easier to fulfil than one huge. And now, after thinking of it for quite a few hours, I think the two large goals for me this year will be to start the beginning of a great portfolio for modelling, and to get enough photography experience to master using a strobe properly. Next year I’ll hopefully be good enough at distributing my time enough to decide joining the Flickr 365 Days challenge. The mini-goals are many, many, but like I said – I’ll make that up as I go along.

I need to loose some weight too, or actually I don’t – but I want to be a perfect XS again and not just a half size in between XS and S. Probably won’t though, unless it happens by it self. I’m really not a big fan of dieting.

Happy Brilliant New Year, darlings! It will be. Feel like sharing your own New Year Resolutions?

Once upon a time, about three months ago while packing up to move to Shanghai, I realized I had too much stuff.

Being materialistic to an incredible degree, it was a quite new kind of day for me. It’s one of the things I thought I’d never admit, not even to myself. While trying desperately to stuff my entire 19 years of life into a 20 kilo suitcase, the amount of luggage you can bring onto an air plane without high extra fees, I finally understood what my dad has been trying too tell me for as long as I can remember: “You simply own WAY too much!”

I realized I the same thing once more after happily trying to forget it for two months, when moving from one room to another in the apartment I share. It took me over a day just to move my things, which I though I had full control over, from a room I hadn’t been staying in for more than a few months. I had already acquired more stuff than I could handle.

I had exactly the same problem even when going home from Shanghai for Christmas a few weeks after moving rooms, as I had when I left Norway. There was just too much things to bring. And I weren’t even planning on bringing much. I made a list of things I felt I absolutely couldn’t leave behind, and suddenly it was three A4 pages long! When I left, I “only” brought with me 13 kilos, after heavily slimming down what I thought I needed.

I just love my things, my books, clothes, shoes, CDs, make-up, dictionaries, art pieces, hair products, camera equipment and not to mention all my jewellery and junk. I’m the kind of person who brings 24 kilos, 4 kilos overweight, when just going on a two week holiday where you technically shouldn’t be needing more than 5.

It’s like what Carrie Bradshaw exclaims in the Sex and the City series: “I like my money right when I can see it – hanging in my closet.” Except I don’t mind it laying around the house either.

However, when I get back to Norway again in May, a lot of those things are going away on Ebay.

My rant from yesterday about insecurity’s got me searching for whole lot of topics today. And getting myself a google reader, just for fun.

• Is Batman a sociopath? An article a bit out of the ordinary.

• Stuff-onomics: Hidden Side of What You Own. Reminded me quite a bit of exactly how much stuff I’ve got. I need to throw away or sell things, but I’ll probably postpone it until I get back from Shanghai.

• Wardrobe Taming – Day-1. Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8. By the fabulous Gala Darling. I’m re-reading these since I want to get rid of quite a lot of stuff, and it helped a lot last time (a year back). Whoever said wardrobe cleaning was easy?

I’ve always been the one to have 20+ tabs up in one Firefox window, despite being an active user of Read-It-Later. Articles, news, blogs, flickr, facebook, youtube videos, deviantArt, fashion livejournal groups, pages I stumbled – it’s almost too much to mention!

And so I decided to share some. Y’know. Maybe you like the same kinds of things as I currently do.

• The Zombie Preparedness Initiative! Just in case. ;)

• How Computer Addiction Works. I think I am.

• How Net Generation Students Work. It’s really interesting to see my own generation from another point of view.

• My generation’s got many names. “Generation Y”, ” the net generation” and not the mention “generation ego”. It’s my main topic of today, and I guess it’s true – we are really, really self-absorbed. But for some reasons, my brain tells me it’s not an all that bad thing. Some articles; “Boom! Goes the Ego“, “Gen Y’s ego trip takes a bad turn” and “The Internet Age Generation “You”: Raising the Ego?“.

“Generally, it is very rare that people accept new ideas,” Maccoby says. It takes a person with “strategic intelligence” to push a new idea successfully. Such a person must have foresight, the ability to partner with others, and the charisma to motivate an entire organization to succeed. This, Maccoby says, is “productive narcissism.” When a person with this combination of traits emerges – and arguably this will happen fairly often when you have an entire generation of young narcissists – great things can happen. ~ The New Me Generation

You want fries with that?

I’ve been feeling a little awkward lately, in ways that I can’t always describe as well as I’d like to.

It feels like that safe, secure ground beneath me is shaking and ripping and turning into something I don’t fully understand. Or maybe in some ways don’t want to. Everything I honestly thought I was is gone, with only pieces and tiny fragments left for me to use. Maybe I’m calmer, kinder, happier, dumber.. or just done with high school?

I can’t say I know anything about who I am any more, and so I’m getting more and more desperate to figure it out. Who am I? What am I? Where do I want to be? What do I want? -With my life? -To study? -To be? -To wear? What makes me happy?

I guess I’m back at the place I was when I was 16. Wiser, more confident and self secure, of course, but just as confused. So, same thing as last time. I’ll be reading articles like “The Art of Building Self-Esteem” and “The Art of Patience” (the names match!) for a longer period, I’m guessing. While watching Gossip Girl, along with all my usual werewolf/horror movies.

All right, I’m dead slow with updating.

The last few weeks have gone incredibly fast, and I have problems understanding that it’s already December. It feels like it’s still September, but also like I’ve been living for ages and ages in Shanghai. It’s only three weeks until Christmas, and I’m not done with all my gifts either – I’m planning on buying everything in Shanghai since Norway is far too expensive for me right now.

Which brings me to a second topic; I’m going home for Christmas, although only for about 2 weeks. I’m really looking forward to seeing my friends, family and cat again, but I’ll be missing the ones of my friends in Shanghai who’ll be going home for good only at the same time.

Also, I’m already getting a Christmas feeling. I’ve already loaded the special Christmas songs over on my mp3-player, and get hyper every time I see Christmas decorations.

I’ve found a new favourite café to hang out at.

Boonna Café seems to be rather known around Shanghai, although I’m not sure if it’s for the nice atmosphere, the western styled food or the speedy wireless internet. Maybe all of them.

I’ve been sitting here for the last four hours and while I’ve been sitting here there’s been at least 14 people with laptops here. Counting the seven whom currently are sitting here, of course, and not myself. With me it’s currently 8 people with laptops, and a few without compys.

I feel very boring for just sitting here, but I don’t have much to do today except homework – and going home to geek and work on my characters just isn’t too tempting.

Now, some food. Yum. Carbonara.

Last Saturday I went TFP-ing in Shanghai.

Now, if you don’t know what a TFP is, it’s short for Trade-For-Portfolio, or Time-For-Print as the Wikipedia says it. It’s when a photographer and a person, doesn’t need to be a (aspiring) model, decides to take pictures for practise. It’s free and both parts get to use the pictures to promote themselves as they please, as long as they agree on which terms between themselves.

^{(Photo; David Li)}

Now, I’m not really trying to build up much of a portfolio, although I think everything with photography is really fun. What I want is to remember what I’ve looked like, so that I can look back when I turn 60 and show the rest of the family how pretty I used to be. So that I can remember my ageing process, from a 10 year old to 50, and not just in bad snapshots and second annually studio taken family photos. I simply want good, maybe even themed photos. Perhaps that’s the real reason why I love photographing. Because it makes it easier to remember the past as it were, and not just in blurry thoughts and half-forgotten phrases. Or maybe it’s because I’m a bit vain. (Who isn’t?)

Anyway. We (the photographer, the wife, their cute kiddo and me) went to take pictures in the 1933 building in the Hongkou district. It’s an old butchery with an extremely impressive architecture. It was very fun and the photographer was very kind (he even explained bits of the Chinese culture for me!). His wife put make-up on me, and I think it was rather interesting to see/feel someone work on my face for around 30-45 minutes. It’s a bit creepy that the worn down building used to be a large butchers place though.

^{(Photo; David Li)}

I’m getting a bit obsessed with everything Shanghai and Chinese. And Hello Kitty.

Or maybe I’ve been for a while, I can’t quite say. I think it might just be a part of the entire shock of travelling so far and being incredibly far away from home. According to everything with theories, it’s supposed to be a part of the phases of a culture shock. I must still be in the honeymoon phase.

Everything is so weird, so cosy. Y’know. Except the beggar children without eyelids (the kids mother was following him around in the metro train) and the beggars in general. They’re not so cosy. The architecture, the alleys, the people selling street food, the club culture, it’s so.. oh year. I’m on a honeymoon trip. Seriously, the street food vendors?

Still, even though I’m enrolled into different Chinese classes at an EF school, I still kept my subscription to Chinesepod. Chinesepod has podcasts with lessons about the Chinese culture, the language and more. So all I need to do to repeat what I’ve learnt in one day’s EF class, is to put on my mp3-player and start listening. Learn while you walk. I like that concept. And I’m obsessing too easily.

I’m always looking forward to Halloween. To the costumes, the pumpkin theme, all the decorations, to be able to dress up extra much and go clubbing in a costume.

This year I’ve celebrated Halloween twice. Once during the Bar Mural’s Halloween boat cruise on the 25th of October, and once in the new I Love Shanghai lounge on the 31st.

The boat party was amazing, and I got a really good impression of Bar Mural in general. They have this ancient look with lots of Buddhas on the stone walls. The boat itself was one of the ones you often can see on the river in Shanghai. With multicoloured, blinking lights and three floors. Oh, and an open bar. They even provided some basic costumes for the ones who didn’t dress up!

Although it wasn’t overly creative, I decided to go as a cat. I bought the ears during the Golden Week (the celebration of China’s national day) from some really annoying seller on the Nanjing walking street. Still forgot to put on whiskers though. Oh well.

I went there along with pretty much our entire EF school. There’s a lot of EF schools in Shanghai, of course, but whenever a few of the students in our school decides to go clubbing somewhere – the rest usually tags along. Let’s just say I had a great time!

_{(Picture belongs to Bar Mural, from the Halloween Boat Cruise.)
In the picture (from left to right); My new roommate Felicia, Ellen and me.}

_{(Picture belongs to Ellen.)}

_{(Picture belongs to Bar Mural.) Cute, magical Ellen.}

The Halloween party at I Love Shanghai was really fun as well. A bit more crowded (as in impossible to dance without someone bumping into you while dancing/trying to get past) but open bar and lots of creative costumes. The barmen were dressed up, or actually down, as devils. I wish I had lots of photos from it, but unfortunately I forgot all about taking pictures. On this day I was a Fairy Kitten since I fell completely in love with Ellen’s wings on the boat party – we switched costumes a few times during the night – and so I bought my own pair in red.

When I got there somewhere after 12 am (we were slow) the entire club was completely filled up. We almost didn’t get in at all because there were no more space in there.

Shanghai is definitely a great place to celebrate Halloween, and I’m hoping to celebrate in Shanghai next year as well.