Sunday, October 18, 2009

OC Food Bank & Where the Wild Things Are


This morning I woke up and got ready for my company and industry-wide volunteer week.  We participated with the Orange County Food Bank and helped package non-perishable food items to be sent out to participating families/individuals.  Our small group of about fifteen (seven of which were children volunteers) produced over 750 care packages!  Go TEAM!

We even finished ahead of schedule, which made me quite the happy camper because I was already late to a birthday luncheon!  I was starved.  Anyhow, as you can see I had to make a "fashion" statement and cut my t-shirt up all cute and 80s - the shirt didn't fit anyway, it was a medium and clearly over-sized.  I also wore silver earrings, necklace, and did my hair all straight and cute with a silver bow headband.  Perhaps too cute a look, but oh well!  (Please excuse the horrid lighting from my webcam.  I was in a rush to head out and took these in a flash.)

Straight after, I drove to my friend's mom's restaurant (my mama is friends with her mother too) to celebrate three birthdays (and, apparently, a retirement).  They're always such a fun group - and let me tell you, that sure is something considering I've never hung out in the same crowd as my mother before.  lLolL.  They always do the super Asian thing and karaoke every opportunity they get.  It's fun to watch though I hardly understand most of anything, and am supremely grateful for my friend's presence.  It's so cute, too, her mom was giving her the Viet kiss which resembles and Eskimo kiss with the touching of the noses but is uniquely accompanied by a.. ..  How do I describe this...  A sort of sniffling, inhaling of air from the nose.  I'm not sure how that developed but I've noticed that in my family; the only good explanation I can come up with is that outright kissing is too liberal and PDA so they developed a less overt method of showing affection by Eskimo nose-breathing kisses.  lLolL.  I love it.

I really have to say how much I appreciate my friends, family, and people I've met along my brief life's journey thus far, and by journey I really mean the past 6 years or so of my life.  Somehow I feel as though I've been asleep, not really being able to appreciate my culture fully or understand the compassion and strength if showing affection and love to those that I reserve them for.  Being born in Utah and growing up a first generation Asian American in the great bubble called Irvine in the fabulous County of Orange, it hasn't all been breezy no matter how sweet it looks on the tele.  I've had experiences in my extra early formative years, when most don't notice anything growing up their whole lives, that ha\ve made me want to hide from the world - to be just black and white rather than yellow and brown.  All I ever want to be is AMERICAN, my nationality rather than a racial group.  I'm still like that today but I've gotten more accepting and appreciative of my heritage, especially all the yummy foods and funny words and expressions we have.  For instance, Vietnamese culture produced the fabulous noodle soup called pho.  We also have expressions that, loosely translated, mean "rotten egg" and "devil child" that make me tickle; no, they're not as  bad in context as they seem.  lLolL

Returning from my digression, after luncheon at the restaurant (seven course beef, what other culture has a SEVEN course beef meal, I mean really...) my friends and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are at Bella Terra.  It was my first time there and I must share that it is a cute place to hang out.  Bella Terra is well decorated with nice sofas, palm trees, cute little hanging lights, and new architecture.  There are some fun stores there like Madison Bleu (a boutique), ANGL (they sell fabulously cute dresses!), Diane (a bikini boutique), and Pinkberry.  I, to this day, still have not tried Pinkberry *wink*nudge* because...  I just don't know, I never wake up from a nap thinking "Oh goodness!  I need me some Pinkberry goodness!"  It's usually sushi I'm craving - yes, I've been a sushi fiend for the past few weeks.  I thought I'd gotten it out of my system having eaten it at least once a week but I was incorrect.  I believe it has clearly dominated my "favorite" food title.

I enjoyed watching the previews before the movie.  I'm looking forward to many children's movies, namely Planet 51, Fantastic Mr. Fox, A Christmas Carol with Jim Carey, and Astro boy, among a bunch of others.  The most immediate film I'd like to watch is This Is It documenting a series of the late Michael Jackson's performances, etc.  (Watch it with me!)  Where the Wild Things Are had great cinematography.  The story is very unique, a bit wild as the name implies, slightly emotional with a lesson to be learned.  I'm strange in that if a movie makes me sad or feeling strange, though I can artistically appreciate its value, sometimes I can't say outright that I enjoyed it.  There were times when I laughed, almost got teary-eyed, and yawned.  Forget the yawn, though, I'm just an old lady so please forgive my minor discontent.   Themes of loyalty and family run solid throughout the movie, testing the protagonists' characters.  I definitely recommend the movie, though it might not need to be seen on the big screen - or just wait until it hits the dollar theatre.

Tangent number five thousand: I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos, tons of different music and makeup recordings.  Most recently I have come to enjoy Marie Digby, a half Irish half Japanese acoustic pop rock talent who went to Cal for at least her freshman year (GO BEARS!).  She does an amazing cover of Beyonce's "Sweet Dreams."  I wish I knew how to sing so badly - it's such an incredible talent, soothing, relaxing, exciting, invigorating, emotional, and communicable.  I bought that classical guitar and ukulele I told you about before, and was learning but got discouraged.  without a proper instructor it's really hard to keep going.  I'm uncertain whether I'm learning correctly, and I'm OCD in that I feel the need to do it right or not at all.  Similarly, I've been trying to find a vocal coach for years now (yes, my lazy bum and highly ADHD mind has found numbers and put off calling them for years).  I'm sure I'm one of a gajillion people that strive to be "different," unique with some ability that is beautiful to share.  I don't want to be a wallflower, a peon, a silly little pawn.  I know that if everyone were queen, there really would be no queen, no shining star...  I just WISH...  !!!



All right, back to reality.  Sweet dreams to you!  This old lady has work tomorrow.  Manic Monday, here I come!  Get ready for me to knock your socks off!

P.S.  YouTube is incredible.  I found some talented people that I can now look up to for a happy face (Kandee Johnson), a hopeful story (Arnel Pineda), a rising dream (Marie Digby), and re-runs of the most fantastic fashion shows and models around - Victoria's Secret and Heidi Klum.  <3

devyn

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