In Spite of Myself

Professional Single is a Chinese drama that seemed a bit staid and drawn out for a college series, with the usual contrived conflicts and not-so-subtle propaganda. Yet I enjoyed it, mainly because despite all the script and production problems the actors all did a very fine job with their roles.

The story is a typical romance between two unlikely characters: Yuan Xian (Ireine Song), a clumsy art student with a tiny body but a big heart who is stuck in the wrong department and has nothing but bad luck, and Qin Shen (Aaron Deng), who is detached, cold and by-the-book as well as the top artist in the same department as Yuan. These two shouldn't even notice each other, but of course they do. Weirdly Shen is the one who falls for Yuan and starts pursuing her. There's also a childhood friend of Yuan's who has grown up to be a star athlete, as well as a high school classmate who relentlessly stalks Shen to serve as competition and distractions, and both do a fine job with that. The whole cast was quite inspiring with their convincing performances.

Problems: aside from what I've already mentioned, throughout the series there was a lingering atmosphere of misogyny as well as Victorian-level uptightness about sex and relationships. Yuan reacts more like a middle schooler than a college student in intimate situations with Chen, and that made every romantic scene seem almost forced on her. I know there are very high expectations when it comes to female moral character in Asia, but this was silly and unnecessary, and nearly spoiled the romance. Also, the annoying friends (as always) are present, but were sometimes excessively annoying. For my final gripe I have to mention the art class itself -- these kids are the slowest clay sculptors I've ever seen. Since I took art class for four years in high school with a bunch of clay sculptors, and sculpted clay a bit myself, I speak with authority. :)

Despite the problems I still liked Professional Single; I think Aaron Deng is gorgeous and Ireine Song very fetching. They don't quite work as a couple, but just watching them act was fun. Available on Viki.com.

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...

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