Beginnings

Hey dad, Hey mum,

I'm sure by now you may have realized that I am awfully hard to get ahold of. In fact, almost everyone has come to terms by now with the fact that I usually take a day to a couple weeks to reply to texts, emails, messages, the whole bit.

Well now all that is about to change.

I have decided that from now on, in an effort to stay in touch with the family, I'll post here in what I am calling the Hai Mum Hai Dad project. Now, I'll be able to send you videos, photos, and thoughts from wherever I am in the world all in one place.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Why doesn't he just email me, or call me, or do normal people things?" Well the truth is, I will still do all those normal people things, but I'd prefer to be able to contact you this way, like a journal or a series of letter correspondences to give you insight into what kind of a person I am developing into, which would otherwise be lost with emails and texts.

In fact, that is my plan. Here I will give you an unabashed honest account of who I am, here I'll be giving you a weekly insight into my life.

Now, yes it all seems a bit narcissistic, but the goal of this project is simply to become more involved in the lives of you, my family.


I've titled this post beginnings. So, though none of this is really new, I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself, because in reality, though I may have only hinted at it I've spent the past year completely reinventing who I am as a person. It took many forms which I'm sure at times were confusing and upsetting, changing my major, my job, my name. So much has happened just in that year, so I feel that introductions are appropriate.

So here goes,


Hi, I'm Alexander. I'm currently a bartender at a hookah bar and a full time student. I have plans of traveling to Japan by the end of 2017 and interests in entrepreneurship. I like woodcarving, weight lifting, biological and astronomical sciences, reading, and writing. I currently speak three languages: Chinese, Japanese, and English. I plan on learning Korean starting by the end of this year and have found a method of language learning that increases your ability to learn a language by such a ridiculous degree that I really wish I had known about it two years ago.

I love reading, and thanks to audible I read at least two books from beginning to end every three to five days. As a child I never really read much, so I guess I'm kind of making up for that now.

I'm obsessed with self- improvement, often coming up with elaborate plans to completely change the why I react to situations the moment I find a personal flaw. For example, I recently noticed a lack of motivation to do much else but watch Japanese animations immediately following a meal, so I decided to charge myself from now on by the minute for every minute wasted. I figured that being in my twenties my time wis worth about 33 cents a minute. Needless to say it didn't go down well at first, though my productivity went up dramatically, the preciousness of time made itself very prevalent in the form of an empty wallet. But I have always thought of failure as a way to gain something.

I plan to very active with this project posting at least weekly with pictures, videos, strange opinions, and all the world that comes with it.  We'll see where this goes but hopefully it will find your way into my life and my way into yours.

Much love,
-Alexander