Yay! First post!

I've been wanting to create one of these blogs for a while and for some reason never got around to it. Maybe it was laziness, maybe it was trying to integrate into the new city I moved to - either way - I'm here now!

A quick summary about me, where I am, what I'm doing, and so on.  It'll be really boring, so if you want to skip over this, I completely understand.

Who are you?
A pretty normal(ish) girl who was born in the largest central city in China (cookies for you if you guess where this is!) and moved to the United States when quite young. I am fluent in Mandarin as well as English.  Every now and then I remember the four years of French I've taken - but most of the time - not so much.

I've lived mostly in the Midwest Region of the US - which for me means Illinois or Indiana.  I prefer Illinois, but then again that's just me.  I went to University at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign and graduated with a major in Management Information Systems (Combo Business and Computer Science/Theory).  Began work for a large firm in Chicago when I graduated in 2004 and am currently working for the same firm in London, UK.

I guess the most distinguishing feature about me is the fact that I'm quite tall (5'10") and Chinese.  My parents and little sister are all tall. I think I grew up thinking I was average height and that everyone else must just not have been eating well or something.  Little did I know it was ME that was above average height. Whoops!

What makes this blog interesting?
Well, no guarantee this blog will BE interesting.  I just thought that I'd put some of my thoughts in writing and have some fun in the mean time filling it with a lot of random crap, pictures I've taken, things I've eaten and places I've been to.

I love travelling and have a goal of making it to 30 countries before I am 30, I'm currently at around 15 or 16 - so I really need to get on it if I have a chance in making it.  In addition to travel, I am a bit of a bookworm.  I read a lot of fiction and have a bit of a soft spot for mysteries and vampire/werewolf fiction (hey! at least I admitted it!) but I also read quite a bit of non fiction and biographical books as well.  I love food. LOVE food. Eating it, cooking it, trying new food.  I've eaten a lot of random and odd/exotic type of food and am also on a mission to eat around the world - even if it is in a restaurant with that cuisine in the same city as me.   In fact if I'm not careful I'm sure I'll be gigantic.   I've been known to bake quite a bit - although there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for that nowadays - so I have to choose between cooking/baking or running (to burn off the baked goods consumed of course!)

This is a caricature of me drawn by a manga (anime) artist:

 

It looks nothing like me

Here is another one drawn by another manga artist:

 

This one also looks nothing like me.  I mean maybe the hair - if it was a tad shorter

This is the last one that was drawn by yet another manga artist. As you can see - none of the three look remotely similar:

 Also - why am I wearing a hat?

Well I guess if I had to choose. The first caricature was the most similar.  It captured my high cheekbones and my non existant nose and the charcoal trenchcoat I had on that day.  The rest...well?  I suppose 2 and 3 were cute too but they must have been looking at someone else that day.  :)