I haven't updated my journal in an age, an I just read this meme in ZarathePirate's journal, so I thought I'd fill it out, using one of my more neglected new OCs. I haven't written much on her yet, so this was an intersting experience.

Rules
1) Pick one of your FCs/OCs
2) Fill in the questions/statements as if you were your FC/OC
3) Tag 3 people at the end of the quiz

1.)What's your name?
Tseng Xue Xiang - everyone calls me Xue! Except for the eunuchs, but they're jerks.

2.)Do you know why you were named that?
Uh, it was a pretty name? I think that's pretty much it.

3.)Are you single or taken?
Absolutely single, though I do have a crush on someone!

4.)Have any abilities or powers?
Um, I'm very good at dusting, and I can clean for a long time without getting bored... oh! And I can beat the tar out of people with my bare hands! And feet, and knees, and elbows...

5.)Stop being a Mary-sue.
I'm a maid. I don't know that anyone on minumum wage who spends most of her time in the company of a broom can be called a Mary-Sue.

6.)If you fought a wrestler who would win?
Ooh! What sort of wrestling? And what gender? I do better against men, they usually underestimate me. I'm pretty good with freestyle wrestling, and sambo, but Greco-Roman gives me some trouble - it's a bit more restricted, I suppose.

7.)Have any family members?
I have my mother and father, though they're a long way away; and I have several brothers and sisters. I haven't seen any of them in years, though...

8.)How about pets?
No; I live in the servants' quarters here at the palace, and we aren't allowed pets. I sometimes feed the koi in one of the ornamental ponds, though.

9.)Tell me something that you don't like.
The Eunuchs. They're not only power-hungry, manipulative, and posessing of absolutely NO regard for anyone but themselves, but they're darn creepy too.

10.)Something that you do like?
I like sunflowers, and Xinke, and the Empress.

11.)Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do?
I do like to clean, but apart from that... I like reading, actually.

12.)Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before?
Yes. Yes I have. It was necessary.

13.)Ever...killed anyone before?
Of course not! Sparring matches are strictly regulated!

14.)What kind of animal are you?
Uh, human?

15.)Name your worst habits.
Uh. Getting crushes on completely unattainable men?

16.)Do you look up to anyone at all?
I admire my mother very much. She left home when she was so young, and made it on her own for a long time. Also, she found a womderful man like my father.

17.)Gay, straight, or bi?
Uh, straight, as far as I know. It's not something I think about that much, really. I have too many other things to do with my time.

18.)Do you go to school?
No, I work full time. I'm not exactly uneducated or anything, I just don't have the piece of paper.

19.)Ever wanna marry and have kids one day?
Yes, but I don't think it'll happen for a few years at least. I'm only eighteen, and I have so much work to do at the moment, what with one thing and another...

20.)Do you have any fangirls/fanboys?
Uh, no? That would be pretty weird.

21.)What are you most afraid of?
Uh. Um. Ah. Can I skip this one? It's a little personal.

22.)What color is your hair?
Black, stright, bob cut. It's important to keep it out of the way in my job, so it's easier to just keep it short.

23.)Eyes?
Black.

24.)What do you usually wear?
My very, very, emphatically unkinky maid uniform. Black dress, long sleeves, skirt just past the knee, white petticoat a few inches longer, white collar, white cuffs, white apron, white stockings, black shoes, and, yes, that slightly frilly head-band-thing with the ribbons.

25.)Do you wish this quiz is over?
This was a quiz? No one said it was a quiz. Is this getting marked?

26.)Well, it's still not over.
Oh. Was that a question? Or what?

27.)Anyways, where do you live?
The servants' quarters of the Imperial Palace, in China.

28.)What class are you? (Low class, middle class, high class)?
Working. I'm a maid.

29.)How many friends do you have?
A few. No really close friends, but there are a few other girls on staff who I'd call friends.

30.)If you would change anything about you, what would you change?
I'd be taller. No one respects a tiny, cute girl in a maid uniform. NO ONE. I could be holding a rocket launcher and they'd laugh it off.

31.)What is your thought on pie?
I haven't eaten pie since I was six. I miss pie.

32.)What's your favorite food?
Pork dumplings, all the way. I love bao. I could live on them.

33.)Favorite drink?
Chocolate bubble tea! I love bubble tea SO MUCH.

34.)What is your favorite place?
There's a courtyard behind the laundry where not many people go. There's a plum tree, and a stone bench, and it's very quiet.

35.)Least favorite?
The bedrooms of any of the Eunuchs. I HATE cleaning in there, those men are so disturbing, I feel unclean just touching their stuff.

36.)Are you still wanting the quiz to end?
I'm not sure I understand this question.

37.)Well, it's over.
Uh, okay? I have to go sweep, now. Bye!


Also, a note:

CHRISTMAS IS IN LESS THAN FIVE WEEKS ARG ARG ARG ARG.

...and other important news.

Alright, so. Those of you who've been paying attention will know that I have just gotten back from three days in Melbourne with Mum. This was mainly for the purpose of seeing Wicked, though obviously we did other things too.
On Thursday morning, we caught a plane out of Hobart at the disgusting hour of 6 o’clock. We got into Melbourne a little before 8, and took a shuttle bus to our hotel. We left our bags in our room, and strolled around the city a little, waiting for things to open. While we were wandering about, we stopped and had some gelati – which later proved to be ill-advised, but was fun at the time.
The first thing we did was visit the aquarium, which was particularly nice given I hadn’t been to an aquarium since we moved down to Tassie, over ten years ago. I spent a lot of time with my mouth hanging open in awe, with occasional exclamations of shock. The jellyfish were quite stunning, and so alien you could hardly believe they came from the same planet. There were green tree frogs [which were adorable], and later poison arrow frogs [which were about the size of the end joint of my little finger]; there were fish so well camouflaged in their tanks we stood there for several long minutes before we went ‘Aha!’; there was a special display of penguins [which were cute, but had too many people hanging about for it to be particularly fun]; there were turtles and terrapins and tortoises; and, my absolute favourite: there was a huge tank, arching over, under, and around a large room; containing fish, rays, and sharks. They were so stunning – there were rays about as big across as my arms could stretch. The only trouble with the aquarium was that it was constructed for a one-way flow – so if, near the end, you decided you wanted to go back and have a look at the eels or something, you were faced with the sudden problem of an escalator which, obviously, only went one way. Bit of a bother.
After the aquarium, we had lunch at a Spanish restaurant called MoVida. The food was great – especially the empanadias we tried, which were divine. This was when we regretted the earlier gelati – we had less room for lunch. We did manage to have dessert, though: I of course had churros, which are also known as Spanish doughnuts, with a very thick, rich hot chocolate for dipping. We also took lots of photos of the laneway MoVida faces out onto, which has a lot of very nice graffiti art [some of which has, sadly, been obscured by taggers].
In the afternoon, we went to the National Gallery of Victoria, which was pretty nice. We looked at some ancient Chinese grave goods; and a show of Imperial Chinese court robes, some of which were stunning. After a while there, we moved on to the Ian Potter Centre, which is just a couple of blocks away. Most of our afternoon spent, we headed back to the hotel for a nap before getting ready for the show.
After our rather overindulgent lunch, we didn’t really need dinner, so we headed straight to the theatre. The building in question was very large and ornate, with frills and fluting everywhere they could fit, and the obligatory pictures of classical gods on the ceiling. The spaces between the rows of seats were huge compared to the norm, which was nice – let us stretch our legs out. Upon being seated, we were informed by slips of paper on the arm rests that, for that evening’s performance, the role of Elphaba [the main character] would be played not by the usual actress, nor by her understudy, but by her understudy. We were a little worried about that, but the performance was great. In fact, the only person we were worried about was the woman playing Glinda [next most important character], but we weren’t sure if that was because of actual false notes, or just the overwhelming shrillness and irritating-ness of the character. It was a great night, though.
On Friday, we had breakfast at a little place I had marked out in advance, called Breadwell. I had a bowl of stewed fruit and some raisin toast with whipped honey-and-cinnamon ricotta, and Mum had something Middle Eastern I can’t recall the name of. After that, we caught the tram to the zoo, where we spent the day.
Because we arrived just after the gates opened, quite a number of the animals were still asleep when we first passed. Our route took us past the peccaries, the maned wolf [which looks like a very large fox with rather long legs, which is appropriate, because it is a member of the fox family], the lemurs, the big cats, the bears, the little cats [relatively little], the lions, the tamarins [which were so, so, so adorable], the platypus [which was in a very dark, very quiet room], the carousel park, the Japanese garden [which was rather small], the penguins [which did not want to come out and talk to us], the red pandas [who were out of sight, but for one asleep very, very high up in the fork of a tree], the baboons, the tree kangaroos, the meerkats [which were CUTE CUTE CUTE], the gorillas, the mandrils, the apes, the monkeys, the tigers, the butterfly house [which was all kinds of stunning]… and it was at that point that we stopped and had lunch.
After that, we saw the elephants, some tropical birds, the pelicans, the orang-utans [which are one of my favourite animals in the world], the giraffes, the zebras, one ostrich, the kangaroos, the emus, the wombats, the koalas, the aviary [which was very nice, and would have been nicer had a group of small, loud children not come through just before us and scared half the birds into hiding], the finches, the bongos [which are funny stripy animals], the giant tortoises, and finally the reptile house. The reptile house was not improved by the addition of a large group of small [and very, very shrill] children. It was pretty fun trying to spot all the snakes and lizards sitting very very still amongst their greenery.
We spent the remainder of our afternoon poking around a few of the arcades, and visited both Koko Black [a very nice chocolate shop, where we had hot chocolate and a tasting plate] and Haigh’s [another chocolate shop]. We had dinner at a quite nice Italian restaurant I forget the name of.
Saturday was our shopping day. We started off by having breakfast at a nice little place we found tucked away in a laneway [you would not believe how many alleys and laneways and sidestreets Melbourne has] – Eggs Benedict for me, porridge for Mum. Then we took the tram up Elizabeth street, to the markets.
The markets are huge. The sheer scale of them is absolutely astounding. Admittedly, the ‘general’ section has a lot of the same stuff, and a lot of cheap rubbish, but there’s a lot of great things too. I got a new wallet, and a tiny pocket-watch. The much more interesting parts are the meat & fish hall, the smallgoods hall, and the fruit & veg sections. The fish and meat are incredibly fresh, very good quality, and startlingly cheap – though I still think the lambs heads were creepy. The smallgoods hall housed bread, cheese, wine, poultry, a chemist’s, sweets, cakes, sausages, and lots of other bits and pieces. The fruit & veg sections was mostly what you’d expect, with some eggs, jams & preserves, and liqueurs as well. Obviously, we didn’t get any fruit or veg [which was a bit of a pity, because they had all sorts of things which are pretty hard to get in Tassie, like dragon fruit, and Budda’s Hands], but we did get some jam. Mum also bought some cheese, and some Spanish rice.
Obviously, lunch was kind of a non-issue after that. During the afternoon, we made a visit to Chinatown, which was actually pretty boring, given most of the places we saw were restaurants [I was sorry we didn’t get to eat there, because I really do like Yum Cha]. That having taken up rather less time than we’d planned for, we walked down to Flinders St Station and visited a hat shop we’d seen on Monday. Mum refused to buy me any of the hats I really coveted [including a $230 top hat], so we got a nice fedora for Charles, who’s been wanting one for a while now.
After some thought, we decided to go to the museum, which had an exhibition on Pompeii on [might I add, at this juncture, that I actually find it sort of annoying that the only thing most people know about Pompeii is the volcano. Nothing else]. Unfortunately, the queue was about three miles long, and as there was no separate queue for the rest of the museum [our next idea], we said ‘bugger that for a game of soldiers’ and left. We ended up going to a nice little bookshop, followed by another nice little bookshop, and much spending of money.
We did, however, manage to fit everything into out luggage, so it was okay.
We took the shuttle bus back to the airport, and, apart from the dullness of airline food, there is little left to report. Oh, except for one oddity as we were checking in.
You know how, when you go to check in, you pass your carry-on luggage through the x-ray machine, dump your wallet and phone and so forth in the plastic trays they provide, and then walk through the scanner? Well, we went to do that – Mum went first, and then I put my bag on the counter and went to clear out my pockets. The guard watching me, however, insisted I put my hat in one of the plastic trays to be scanned. This hat, I might add, was the afore-mentioned felt fedora. He also told me to put the book I had in my hand on the tray. So baffled was I that I did so, and then walked through the metal detector with my earrings, bracelet, necklace, pocketwatch, wallet, and phone in my pockets. It didn’t go off, which leave me to wonder if it would have bleeped if I’d had, say, a knife in my pocket? A little worrying, but mostly odd.
Anyway, that is it for my epic Melbourne trip.
[And I think there’s something wrong with my keyboard – the spacebar keeps not spacing].

Also, it's my birthday tomorrow. I will be 19.
Yay.

My party itself is in about two weeks, though, because I spent so long trying to figure out what I'd do for it. And might I add that it is quite awkward to get invites to friends you haven't seen in forever [yesIamlookingatyou,Cheerful-Pessimist]?