Attention CitiCard members

Do you own a CitiCard credit card? Did you enroll in their Automatic Payment? Then this may be of interest to you.

I used to roll my eyes a little when I hear people complain about banks. Your fault for not checking your monthly statements carefully, I’d think! It’s so much easier to blame the “big, bad companies.”

Recently, I’ve signed up for a new Citi Dividends Card. I also enrolled in Autopay to make sure that my credit card bills get paid every month, even if I somehow forget. But so far, I’ve never forgotten. In fact, I have a tendency to pay online manually after the statement date but before the due date.

A few weeks ago, I was shocked to find my checking account at -$75. After quickly transferring some money over from my savings account, I noticed that CitiCard Autopay billed me for my December balance, which was almost $1500 (I bought my new laptop that month, along with some Christmas gifts), IN ADDITION to the $1500 I paid two weeks earlier.  It turns out  that for the past two months, I have been paying my credit card balance TWICE a month.

I immediately called CitiBank, and the first thing I hear from the Customer Service woman (before I was even able to start complaining about the situation) was a quick defensive stance: “You should have read the Terms and Conditions when setting up automatic payment. It’s all written in our policy.” This is when I realized that it’s CitiCard’s way of cheating their customers out of money. Unless you have an unusually large balance one month or if you very carefully look through your checking account statements, there’s no way you’d catch it.

The worst part is that the supervisor over the phone told me explicitly she would return the excess charge from both months, but I have still only received payment from the December balance. When I called again, I was told that there was only a note on the $1500 charge but not the one before that. So I had to go through all the transfers and the explaining again.

The problem is…they’re not technically doing anything illegal. It’s all written in the fine print. And returning only one of my overpaid balances was simply a “mistake.” But, if you don’t obsessively check your accounts online, you’d never notice! So you KNOW that they’ve got their little tricks up their sleeves, and that is just so. not. okay.

</rant>

Hey hey you you, I think I need a girl friend

A few weeks back, I decided it’s time to start accepting who I am and stop trying so hard to be different. I’ve vowed to celebrate Chinese New Year’s this year for realsies, and make more of an effort to start speaking Chinese with other Chinese grad students. So that hasn’t exactly happened yet…but I’m working on it!

It turns out that my identity extends beyond the fact that I’m Chinese. In fact, believe it or not, I’m also a female. I know. Shocker. Last night, I found myself devouring the pages of my latest Cosmopolitan issue and growing increasingly jealous of the “Great ideas for a Girls’ Night Out!” article. You must be asking yourself “WHY, SHANYING, WHY are you reading Cosmo and feeling anything outside of purely RIDONCULOUS??” Well, see, I’m currently stuck in a very male-heavy environment. My classes are dominated with males (physicists, even). I’m the only girl in my lab group and in my office. At home, I also live with three males. Oh and most of the people I hang out with are either the Logs, Mike’s all-male a cappella group, or the undergrads on Destiny, Mike’s all-male floor.

It’s not that I don’t have any female friends (in fact, most of my readers are probably girls. Hi!!), but I honestly don’t feel like I have any really close girl friends I gossip with on a daily basis. Of course, I’ve put myself into this situation because I’m terrible at making and keeping friends. I’ve made my boyfriend my only best friend, and consequently I’ve sort of just let everything and everyone else slip into “pretty good friend, but don’t hang out all that much” zone. But that’s getting kinda lonely after a while. I wish I could be part of a group four BFF’s to have drinks with and laugh and talk about boys and the latest trend in vibrators like they do on Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City. That’s right. I just admitted that I wish my social life resembled those on terribly cliche TV shows. Go on, judge me. I dare you.

Therefore, my new goal is to do a better job at arranging social events with my friends (of all genders!) and hopefully make new friends in grad school. I’m also about to embark on a journey through the female version of the movie I Love You, Man. I’m going to call it I Love You, Woah-Man. Holla at me if you got a cooche and you wanna be BF4Lyfe with me. Maybe we could even plan a Girls’ Night Out. I got a shitty magazine with some good tips.

Band in progress

All I need now is a little Asian girl who plays the bass, and we’d have ourselves the Best Band Ever.

Desperate Housewives

(I was gonna tweet about it, but I ran out of characters.)

When it comes to TV shows, I’ll be the first to admit that my guilty pleasure, after I finished watching all of Sex and the City of course, is Desperate Housewives. You have to admit that the first season was at least somewhat clever. But now, I only watch the show for the one or two lines that are actually funny. Also, Eva Longoria is pleasant to look at, even though she can only act one emotion: bitchy/annoyed. Every thing else in the show (the random killing of characters, the contrived and nonsensical plot “twists,” and the predictable catty fights and resolutions between the housewives) has definitely worn its welcome.

Today I’ve decided to finally call it quits. It first started with a few racists episodes about the Chinese housekeeper in the Solis household. Then there was the whole segment where Lynette was trying to decide whether or not to keep the baby, which made me feel like it was treading sensitive political territories. But this week’s episode was the last straw. It was by far the most unoriginal and desperate one ever and I felt like I was actively killing braincells by just watching it. Plus, I was offended by their portrayal of a “fat” Teri Hatcher. Sure, she has no chin. But aside from that, I’d say she looks pretty healthy! See for yourselves:

Mark my words. My days watching anti-feminist, politically-incorrect television is over. Goodbye women of Wysteria Lane. I hope your producers will stop trying to milk you for all you got.

On being Chinese

When I first entered MIT, I had my mind set to be different. I had reached a rebellious stage in my life and decided that other Chinese students are so dull. So predictable. So stereotypical. I didn’t want to be just another fob attending a tech school, majoring in economics, business, or biology. No, I was going to be better than the crowd. I was going to be An American.

So I associated myself, for the first time in my life, with a new crowd. The westerners’ crowd. And despite the fact that MIT is full of Asians, I somehow managed to make relatively few Asian friends. I have always been proud of being Chinese, and I defend my country passionately during political debates. I share my culture and its food with my non-Chinese friends. But aside from that, I was essentially becoming a Mei Guo Ren (American). And I was proud of it.

Tonight, however, I remembered what it means to be Chinese again. It should come to no surprise that this revelation is happening while I am in Vancouver (where I spent 4 years of my younger life.) I had the chance to meet up with my old Asian friends, and it was incredibly refreshing.  There is something Qing Qie (familiar, close, comforting) about being with the people who grew up with similar values, culture, and language. I am ashamed and appalled at how immature I have been, ignoring my roots and believing that I was “better” than my people.

To my (rather few) Asian readers: have you ever experienced anything similar? Can you see being a “born-again-Chinese” in your near future?

Son!! I FOUND YOU!

(via Rodeo)

Okay, I promise I’ll stop posting videos of cute babies/young children.

10 money-saving ways I’d like to drop

I have two 10-page papers to write for Friday and what am I doing instead? Searching for new music and blogging. ACK!

In light of recent events, I have started day dreaming what it would be like if I had more money than the meager just-barely-enough stipend from Harvard. I’m a very frugal (excessively frugal, even) person, so it’s very exciting to think what would happen if frugality is no longer a necessary exercise. When that day comes, I can finally:

1. stop feeling bad every time I’m eating out (“If only I had time, I could have made a meal for 1/3 of this price!”)
2. buy asparagus and mushrooms, even when they’re not on sale
3. shop for better quality meats/veggies/cheese at Whole Foods without wanting to cry whenever we’re at the cashier
4. wash my sheets every week (laundry costs me $4/load!)
5. only get cage-free eggs. God they taste so much better
6. take the T home instead of walking through the cold at night just to save $1.75
7. drink a nice bottle of wine at least once a week
8. start charging my phone and laptop at home instead of the office
9. using luxuriously soft toilet paper
10. subscribe to The Sun.

What small joys do you deprive yourself of to save money?

Babies: The Movie

(via Usman)

I’ve watched this trailer 6 times already.

**EDIT** Okay, on the 7th time of watching it, I JUST realized that there are actually TWO Asian babies!

Comebacks

We’ve all experienced it. Someone catches you off guard with an insult, a challenge, or perhaps just a simple question. You stumble, trying to think of a clever response, but your mind blanks. So you say something really stupid instead only to think of a perfect comeback a few minutes/hours/days/years later.

For example: when I was a senior in high school, I was making some presentation in my math class. For whatever reason, I decided to also use the chance to make some comment about being against the War on Iraq. Yeah, 17-year-old me was pretty obnoxious. That day during lunch, a group of boys who were well-known conservatives approached me. “We heard that you were complaining about the U.S. fighting the war in Calc D today. Is that true?”

May I briefly interject here and explain that these group of guys were the stars of the Speech and Debate club, and I was one of the worst debaters (though I did at one point win “Most Improved”). (Oh god just the memories of Speech and Debate makes me want to cry). I was outspoken about my political views but didn’t do much reading on stuff, where as those guys were digesting, like, 25 news sources a day. Secretly I worshiped the ground they walked on, wishing I could one day be as eloquent and politically minded as they were.

Anyways, as I was saying, they came up to me at lunch and said blah blah you’re a really stupid girl who’s way beneath us and you whined about the war on Iraq, right?

“Um. Yeah?” I responded cautiously. “War is bad!….?”

“Well,” the tall, sort of scrawny and nerdy and YET SO TERRIFYING guy said, “how do you explain that earlier today [some value] percent of the Democrats in the Senate [or House] voted in favor of fighting the war?”

I blinked. He was throwing facts at me. FACTS! How do I ever come up with a good response against this intelligent, reasonable, knowledgeable conservative? I did what any other politician would have done.

“Na uh!”

“It’s true. Check CNN.”

“Oh, well then.” Heat began radiating from my face. I quickly said “whatever, I haven’t read that report. I can’t trust your sources.” And then I ran the hell away.

That shameful memory haunted me for years and years. Finally, five years later, while unable to fall asleep in bed I’ve got my comeback. I’m very excited about this, guys. Are you for it? Are you? Okay. Here it goes.

“What do party lines have to do with anything??” BAM. In your face.

Do you guys have any time in your life you wish you could go back to now with a better comeback? I’m sure you do! Entertain me, so I don’t feel so lame. Whatever it is, your response couldn’t have been worse than “I, personally believe, that, Americans, don’t have maps.”

Things that amuse and annoy me

Amusing: An entire magazine devoted to cats. In the USA.

Annoying: Stupid elevator algorithms. If I am on the first floor, it’s ALWAYS the elevator on the 4th or 3rd floor that comes down, not the one in the basement. Why??