The Weightwatcher Wonder

So, like, I understand there's been a lot of comments, compliments, and complaints about my weight loss trip. The thing that surprises me the most about this trip that people have witnessed was that people would see me eat and wonder how I did it. No one seems satisfied with the answers of 'eat right' and I remember having a long conversation about this with one of my friends who basically interviewed me on the methods I used to get to this point.

Basically, you're going to hear the same things that you hear from magazines with weight-loss tips and books that have long lists of nutrition facts, food journals, and counting calories. It's not that I don't think they don't work. They probably do but you and I both know that we're too lazy to fill those things out, and really if we did, we're paying $20 for a workbook on weight loss and then find that we left it at the gym and it's gone the next day. I think the real success is just creating boundaries and then working as freely as possible in those boundaries if that makes sense.

So here are some rules that I went by, that I didn't realize I went by, until my friend asked about what I did instead of the routine accusations and questions about my weight loss.

1) PATIENCE: A lot of people like to think this all happened within a few days. This process took me 10 months of endless struggle. I went from having 4 full meals a day of having pancakes, syrup, and french toast for breakfast, and hamburgers, fries, pizza, and ice cream for lunch, dinner, and a midnight meal. I was eating probably 4000 calories mind you, so if you aren't losing weight drastically, it's probably because you didn't each as much as I did. Don't expect results in five days. Expect it more in five months. I won't lie. It was horrible. I got fast food withdrawals. I got hunger cravings because I was so used to having super-size onion rings and Wendy's frostings at 1AM and having pizza and cookies and soda for dinner. To transition from that to fruits, vegetables, rice, fish, and grilled chicken felt smooth like water at first, and then you hit the rocks. You just keep telling yourself 'do this for one more day' and tell that to yourself everyday.

2) EAT UNTIL YOU'RE FULL: I cannot stress this enough. As long as you're eating the right stuff, eat until you're full. The biggest mistake that people make is that they cut back during meals and then completely overshoot later with snacks and deserts of gargantuan proportions then wonder what went wrong. I remember one of my friends telling me they haven't eaten a meal in three days yet gained 3 pounds. But when I saw mountains of empty jumbo-size bags of potato chips in her room, she said those didn't count because they were snacks. You may think it doesn't count, but your stomach says it does. Then you have friends who eat minute portions of their salad during dinner but then take a trip over to Cold Stone and try to order the smallest sizes without realizing that even the smallest Cold Stone portion is at least 500 calories, thus not only cancelling out the salad they tried to skip on, but made up for their lunch as well. Which reminds me...

3) NO SALADS: I don't like salads. There are only two places where I'd EVER order a salad because I liked how it tasted and that's the Bread Basket's chicken caesar salad and Plutos, and I hardly ever eat at either place. I eat out often at Chinese restaurants and none of them serve salads. Salads aren't satisfying. They don't fill you up and you have the greater tendency to make up for the calories with something else. Whenever I go out, I get lots of seafood. I fill up on seafood, potatoes, rice, and steamed vegetables because I like my food hot.

3) COMPROMISE: Steam/Grill it. Don't fry it. It amazes me when people are amazed that I eat meat. OK, so recently I stopped taking pork and beef because of the whole hormone issue and honestly, it makes decisions on food much easier. However, that was just recently, so even during the time I took beef and pork, I still didn't gain weight because I didn't eat it fried. Meat is suppose to be as filling and low-calorie as fruits are. The problem is when you add lots of cooking oil, "special" sauces, bread, and flour to it that suddenly a gigantic chunk of 200-calorie fish fillet becomes a 1100-calorie fried entree + mayonnaise. And if you gotta have that juicy hamburger, in the words of Tyra Banks, you can have the hamburger but take the bun off. Even when I'm forced to take trips to Chipotle or McDonald's, I order a burrito bowl (no wrap) or I order a double cheeseburger and skip the fries.

4) SKIP THE SNACKS: Even if you get hunger cravings, eat a hunk of fruit. I take an apple, banana, or pear as a fruit. I prefer pears though. A Snickers bar doesn't make a filling snack but I know a gigantic apple would, plus it's half the calories of a Snickers bar. Buy a variety of fruits and buy them in large quantities so you know that the expiration date on those things is coming fast, forcing you to become more stingy on spending extra money on candy bars and milkshakes. The variety is to ensure you won't get bored and can have something different every day.

5) FRUITS FOR BREAKFAST: Mind you, I absolutely miss french toast which is the worst food item that can be ordered at Denny's. I love waffles and pancakes and the gooey syrupness that it makes me sad just thinking about it. However, I have stomach issues. Big stomach issues that my doctors had concerns several times that I might have had some precursor to colon cancer due to constipation. That helped made the push towards a healthier, high fiber diet. Fruits are conventionally more thought of as a snack rather than a meal but for me, I take fruits as breakfast. I take a lot of them. When I say a lot, I mean that I go to Safeway, buy a cantaloupe (you know, the whole thing), cut it open and eat the entire thing with a spoon. That's my breakfast. You'll be as stuffed as a marshmallow until lunchtime comes around. The last time I looked it up, a cantaloupe was no more than 250 calories. How's that for a power-sized yummy, guilt-free and healthy breakfast. This is why I encourage buying lots of different kinds of fruits in large quantities. That's a lot of perishable food you got to chow down.

6) DRINKS: A lot of empty calories come from drinks. I stay away from fruit juices because fruits are always better. Smoothies don't make good snacks or drinks. If I take a smoothie, usually it's for a meal and I order one of those power sizes and drink it up for lunch or breakfast. I loved soda though so usually I take a lot of diet soda, which I know is still bad for me but I feel that if I've given up on so many foods already, I deserve a break like this. And besides, I found that once I stuck to diet drinks, it made it easier to "cope" with not having junk food because I still felt like I got some false access to it. You also will begin to realize that after taking diet soda, it's hard to go back to regular soda because it's way too sweet and you don't get the sugar high. Tea is very good. I tried to go with coffee but I always end up choosing tea again. Compromising is key. I couldn't give up soda, so I took diet instead.

7) FORGET CARBS/CALORIES/FAT NUMBERS: Whoever said to eliminate carbs from your diet has got it all wrong because fruits are HIGH in carbs. Breads are too. I love bread. Do you know what bread I love the most? The Wonderbread in all of its fake white fluffy mess. But I want to be healthy too so I trade it up with multigrain and whole wheat. It doesn't taste as wonderfully fake as Wonderbread, but it'll do. Compromise is key. If you can't do that, your diet is too rigid and you'll eventually collapse from the ominous junk food withdrawals.

8) TIMING: I eat about every 5 hours but because of work, my schedule often gets thrown off so this is what my day often looks like. I have fruits for breakfast and the best part about that is that you can choose the amount you want in relation to how soon you're having lunch. Not having lunch for a long time? Scarf down that entire pineapple. Did you wake up late and might be having lunch in about three hours? Just have an apple and some berries. Lunch and dinner are pretty much free for all as long as it's the right foods. I don't need to list what the right foods are here because honestly, everyone knows what they are. Oh, and I usually clear my plate so that pretty much stomps out the idea of eating less means losing more.

That's about it I think. People have told me that when they went healthy, all of their junk food and doughnut cravings stopped and they became totally disinterested. Maybe they're telling the truth but those cravings have never stopped for me. Whenever I walk by a food court in the mall and see the golden arches smiling at me, I want to say yes, have that super-sized please. I gave up my favorite foods in the process: french fries, french toast, Starbucks strawberries and cream + whip cream, potato chips, sponge cakes, bread bowls, and ice cream pizookies. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast. A lot of pouting and complaining was involved in which I had meals filled with fish, vegetables, and rice while everyone else had pizza and pasta and stare at me like I was insane. Then later they asked how I did it.

If there is anything to take away from this, it's a couple things.

It's not about eating less, it's actually about eating more but making sure it's the right thing you're eating. I can eat 3 waffles and still have another. But I can't get pass a cantaloupe that has the caloric count of 1 waffle.

Compromise is a huge deal. It can allow you to succumb to your junk food withdrawals without feeling guilty and without there being any consequence. Take the In-N-Out hamburger but have the spread replaced with ketchup. Take the diet soda instead of regular soda. Instead of candy, take the fruit.

Variety: It helps you keep up the discipline and patience with seeing the excess weight go away. Having fruits as a snack gets boring unless if you have a different one everyday.

It's also good to imagine how you'd be feeling after you're finishing what you ate. Would you feel good about it? Guilty? Satisfied? Restless? If you want that brownie that badly, picture how you'd feel once you've gone through the whole thing. That often helps with the cravings and encourages you to have the fruit instead.

If you want to lose it, you cannot go on a diet. This is lifestyle change. This temporary diet adventure has nearly taken a year to accomplish. And because I don't follow this salad and skipping-meal nonsense, this is a way of eating I'll have to stick to for the long run. This is good-bye to Burger King French toast sticks for a very, very long time.

So if anything, yes, you can still eat meat, appease some of your junk food cravings, and actually skip trips to the gym, as long as you're eating not less but better. Those were the steps I followed without becoming a frustrated soup-and-salad-addict who gives up again on their 28395256th diet.

The Story of Jesus Christmas

I haven't posted an entry on this for a really long time. I haven't even gone to church for an even longer time. But for some reason, I felt absolutely compelled to go because of a promise I feel I made with God that if He can answer my prayers, the least I could do is give Him an hour of my day. It was worth it because I saw the people who I miss so much and I will see most of them again on Tuesday. And it kind of inspired me to go through the meaning of Christmas again and trying...TRYING to take the focus away from my self-absorption and insecurities and think about someone else for once.

Even though the lead pastor of the church spoke in regards to Tiger Woods' sins and Augustine's repentance, Pastor Chen also did an amazing job establishing the political and social atmospheres of Rome at the time Jesus was born--something that most pastors neglect. I'm not sure why that was important to the sermon, since I had to leave early but I think it's to get a glimpse of the challenges Joseph and Mary faced at the time.

I like the book of Luke. Luke was a doctor who likes guts, and you know that I like doctors regardless of their admiration for human guts.

So Luke starts out like this where he thinks all things are possible through Christ and through menopause. Apparently, Herod's priests are allowed to have wives so Zachariah took this opportunity to try and make some offspring but he was too late. He married this lady named Elizabeth who was less like a queen and more like my Mom whose hot flashes are impairing her reasoning ability to trust in the Lord. Then God sent super-angel Gabriel who brings some good news and some bad news to Zachariah.

Gabriel: I'm Gabriel. I bring you some good news and some bad news. What would you like to hear first?
Zachariah: Good news.
G: Good news is, you're going to have a son named John.
Z: What's the bad news?
G: He's gonna be sober for the rest of his life.
Z: Cool!
G: And you're going to be blind until he's born.
Z: Oh.
G: And mute.
Z: Fmylife.

Moral of this conversation: This is what you get when you believe God can't overcome menopause. And to add more salt to the wound, Luke says that Z "remained dumb" (1:22) when he left the temple. How awkward must that be. You question a superangel, he tells you that you're going to be blind and mute, and then Luke calls you stupid. But somehow despite all these physical barriers, Z gets laid and E is preggers. Everyone is happy except for John who will never have the same 21st b-day experience that I had.

Now the real story begins when superangel Gabriel sparkles in front of Mary the Virgin and another conversation goes on. This time, with slightly better results.

G: Z and E just had a wonderful baby and I'ma let them finish but Mary, you gonna have the baddest Baby of all time!

And like E, M goes:

M: Dude, I'm a virgin. Joseph ain't gettin' any of this yet. But if God can overcome menopause, then I don't need a man to make a baby. The last time I heard, all you need is a birth canal and you're all set.

So I guess M decided to visit E to see the menopause miracle causing John's fetus to leap all around making the Bible very, very pro-life. Every woman in the house then sings songs of conquering menopause and the decreasing role of males in genetic recombination. Within a couple verses, John is upgraded from a leaping fetus to a sober baby. Z is absolutely overjoyed as he can now get laid without being dumb, blind, and mute. I'd be praising God too and never doubt that something so silly like estrogens could stop God from making leaping fetuses of joy.

Fast forward to Luke chapter 2, Caesar Augustus is absolutely fed up with uneducated Roman citizens so everyone needs to go home and stay put for a while as the Caesar tries to sort out his Roman migraine. Joseph, who has a legacy more impressive than the Kennedys, is one (un)lucky guy who's fiancee can become pregnant without him actually making any physical contact with her. M's water obviously broke at the worst time possible as they had to wrap the Baby in whatever they could find in a place where livestock reeked.

Now, this is the baddest Baby of all time and there is absolutely no way that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were going to upstage these baby pictures. A bunch of angels then decided it would be a wonderful idea to ambush a lucky group of shepherds into visiting Jesus. M is really a good sport and all about letting strangers sing songs of joy to her Baby but I would be too if there were a bunch of angels standing outside ready to trumpet any human being into the ground.

This is the story of Christmas. The wise men didn't come until a year or two later but I'd rather be a shepherd. Think of how wonderful it would have been to see the God of the Universe looking like the most adorable Pea in a Pod. I would be moved and take care of sheep for the rest of my life. I like eating them, but being around them is just as much fun.

Playlist

OK, so I know I haven't updated in a while but I couldn't help but get this off my chest. There have been a few songs lately that I keep placing on repeat when I drive to work or to school elsewhere that I am absolutely in love with right now. Most of them are the typical pop music but I don't feel the least bit ashamed to admit that I love this stuff. Music is music to me, and I don't believe in this whole business that Montyoum puts into words so well.

"Throughout my life I've dealt with the issue that if one person likes something enough. There will always be people who will want to contradict that. It's a reflex mind you. But to me the idea of disliking something because it's popular is just as bad as liking something because it's popular. Why not genuinely trust your natural reaction?

...But this also bring ups the question of individuality. People take solace in that they're taste for something is a symptom of their individuality. Therefore when something they like becomes popular, this is somewhat threatening to their identity. I guess a bitter question would be, would your tastes change again if the thing you liked then became popular as well?"

I recall back in high school when I had people tell me that the music that I liked to lisened to were things they used to like...until it becam popular. Oh please I feel like I'm at an age now to make up my mind.

I honestly cannot bring myself to like the Black-Eyed Peas song, "Boom Boom Pow" no matter how many times I made myself listen to it. No matter how many times you make me listen to 3OH!3, no I don't want to do the Helen Keller and talk with my hips. However, I love nearly every single song that Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift releases and that hasn't changed since they hit the radio.

It's just I remember a time when I was insecure with the music that I listened to. I made myself listen to and purposedly sought for music that I knew other people would not be able to tolerate because that was my way of trying to push my individuality on other people's faces. The whole 'see, I'm not like you all' sort of pushiness got me into trouble with some people and now, I'm just content to what I have.

According to people who think my taste in music is rather questionable because I don't know the names of every single indie group in the universe, this is my playlist for now that I can't seem to put down and why.

1. Eminem - Beautiful

I remember the first time I heard this song, I felt my heart race because I felt like every part of this song spoke to me. I'm so glad Eminem made his comeback and this has to be my favorite song off of his album. I don't know why he didn't craft a song like this sooner but I absolutely am in love with this song and put myself into every word of his lyrics. It's amazing how well he pulls this song together, which I thought was going to be extremely corny but it ended up not being that way at all. In my opinion, anyone who thinks Eminem is overrated and this song is too sappy for them, does not have a heart. But I think if you're beyond 40 years of age (like my parents for example), then I understand you calling this rubbish.

What made me love this song so much is that it takes that good old cliche of walking for a mile in someone else's shoes and he puts a fantastic spin on it. Not to mention, the Rock Therapy samples that Eminem places in the beginning and at the end of the song really struck a nerve in me because you felt those words be so true. I haven't had a song like this connect in the longest time.

Lately I've been hard to reach
I've been too long on my own
Everyone has a private world
In which they could be alone
Are you calling me
Are you trying to get through
Are you reaching out for me
Like I'm reaching out for you

2. Keri Hilson, Kanye West, Ne-Yo - Knock You Down

I really did not like this song the first 80 times I heard it. And now suddenly in the last 3 days, I adore this. I really loved Ne-Yo's solo in this song and for when I think about this song, it felt much more desperate than any Pussycat Dolls' ballad for some reason. This was kind of strange since Knock You Down is much more upbeat than ballads that sing for a desperate, unstoppable love, this felt much more deep. Keri Hilson delivers once again.

Ne-Yo's part was my favorite. I love his analogies and the insert of "Miss Independent" in his solo.

I've never thought I
Would hear myself say (ooh)
Ya'll gon head
I think I'm gonna kick it with my girl today (Kick it with my girl today)
I used to be commander and chief
Of my pimp ship flyin' high (flyin' high)
Til I met this pretty little missle, that shot me out the sky (ohhh shot me out the sky)

(Hey) Till now I'm crashin, I don't know how it happened
But I know it feels so damn good
Said if I could go back, and make it happen faster
Don't you know I would baby if I could
Miss independent (ohh, to the fullest), the load never to much, she helpin me pull it
She shot the bullet that ended that life
I swear to you the pimp in me just died tonight

And the part that I liked that Keri Hilson sings is:

"If it hurts
Better make it worth the fall"

I'm not sure why, but those 2 lines were the best of hers in that song.

And Kanye's part only stood out to me at the beginning in which he goes:

Keep rockin', and keep knockin'
Whether you Louis Vouiton-ed up or Reebok-in'
You see the hate, that they're servin' on a platter
So what we gon' have - dessert or disaster?

3. Cobra Starship - Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester)

Not only can Leighton Meester act, she can sing. Well. I love the flirtiness in this song and the whole battle of the sexes that goes on between each of their solos. And it's the kind of battle and flirtiness that hints at harmless boy-girl fun but without the overt sexuality that is way too common in all of pop music today.

4. Lady Gaga - Second Time Around

I know, I know, this just leaked onto the Internet, like, today. However, as much as I am not particularly fond of Lady Gaga's flaunting promiscuity, I really admire her talent. She has an amazing sense of style and she can do no wrong in terms of musical performance, producing her music, writing her own music, and making her someone exciting to watch. I always love seeing pictures of her out and about town because her sense of style is so wonderful and I wished would be mimicked more often even if she isn't wearing pants. I could care less.

This song sounds different from her other music but it's nonetheless great and I love all the little intricacies and provocative lyrics she has. I guess I can't make up my mind about her.

5. Beyonce - Halo

I don't know what it is about this song. I stopped listening to it for a while. Then, the other day, this song started playing on my iPod and I didn't realize this was the following song. I fell in love with it again because there's something that's inspiring in a larger-than-life kind of way. Maybe it's Beyonce's voice or the music in the background or both.

6. Mr. Hudson - Supernova (feat. Kanye West)

OK, so I know this leaked today too but as of far, I've already heard this song 9 times in a row and I'm beginning to like it more and more each time. British singers don't know how to make bad music. It seems like every single song they produce is unable to let me down. I don't know why I don't get into British music more often. They even make Kanye West sound better than usual and I am a Kanye fan. This is his 2nd time on the list already and I haven't even gone through my entire playlist yet.

7. Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror

This Michael Jackson week so obviously there's a no way I could not place something of his in here. I'm embarassed to admit that I didn't know this song was a Michael Jackson song. I remember hearing this a lot as a kid when my mom drove me to elementary school. I remembered the words to this song and sang it. Then, just two days ago just before I bought the Essential Michael Jackson, I was wondering why this song and not something else like "Thriller" or "Smooth Criminal" were not #1. Then, when I clicked for this song, I was thinking "OMG, this was a Michael Jackson song?"

8. Jackson 5 - I Want You Back

One more MJ song. I can't stop singing this inbetween helping out patients at CVS/pharmacy and singing this in the shower or whenever I'm bored. I don't even like this song that much but this is a playlist of songs that have been stuck in my mind. I haven't been able to stop singing this song this entire week.

9. Paramore - That's What You Get

Don't get me wrong. I don't like Paramore. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the vibe of the whole band I received when I watched the Misery Business music video. However, I think Rock Band was responsible for me falling in love with this song and to this day, remains as my favorite and only Paramore song I like. Well, Crushcrushcrush was alright, but That's What You Get is the only thing that keeps me from dismissing Paramore as a whole.

10. Meese - Next In Line

There must be something special about today because I am suddenly flooded with a bunch of music that I really click with. Yes, I found this off of iTunes free single of the week but that doesn't change the fact that I really enjoy this band. I might look into them later but as for now, the vocals are very calming. I'd love to find this guy and ask him to sing me to sleep :).

How Asparagus, Models, and Martin Yan Came Together

Today ended up probably being one of the best days I’ve ever had with my family in the longest time. Instead of going home, this time, they came up mainly to help me take most of the stuff from my room back home. However, I was able to inform them about the Stockton Asparagus festival in downtown Stockton, which was going on only this weekend, and the reason why we should all go there is because it was something special like Gilroy’s garlic festival.

I had to admit that the day started out badly at first. There was a miscommunication between me and my dad over the directions on which parking lot he should park at. He gave up trying to understand my directions and ended up parking across campus over at the John B. parking lot that when I got there, my mom wanted to go to the bathroom. So, I had to take them to the University Center’s bathroom, which, to my surprise, they seemed to not recognize at all. My brother had never seen the University Center so he was amazed by how nice my school seemed all the sudden. My parents said the food looked great, but of course, they don’t know how many times the dining hall food has sent me to the bathroom.

Then came the whole arguments of how my brother wanted to go to CQB City for Airsoft and there was realistically no way we could have dropped my brother off, gone to the Asparagus festival, and picked him up again. Insert lots of arguing, yelling, and defensive statements about miscommunication, misdirection, and mistranslation—I felt like this day was going down the drain. I had only met up with my parents on campus for only ten minutes at this point.

Things got even messier when I wasn’t sure how to get there so I pretty much instructed my dad how to get there all from memory. We turned the wrong way once but we figured it out really quickly and turned around on El Dorado Street. We found the place, but the $10.00 parking was what got to my mom. It was funny how some of the lots had signs that said they were full but the lots clearly had room for 10 or more cars. Oh well, I wasn’t complaining since we only had to walk an extra 20 feet. On the way walking out of the parking lot, a lady from a larger group of people approached us and asked if we wanted to buy a ticket from her that she had received ahead of time. She said she got it for free but was going to sell it to us for $5 to get in. At first, we all thought it was a scam but when I looked at it, it looked legit, and I told my parents we’d be saving $7 (adult admission was $12) if we took it from her so we paid her for it.



While we were standing in line at the Asparagus Festival waiting to have our bags checked and buying our tickets, I noticed the girl in front of me had this awesome amazing red hair. I got really excited for some reason and I wondered if her friends/family noticed that I was taking one or two pictures of her hair but I said it as obviously as I could that I really liked her hair and want to get my hair to look like hers if I let it grow out.



When we went inside, we were about to split off. My dad is extremely family-centered whereas my mom isn’t really at all. I told my parents that I was really hungry and wanted to get food but my mom wanted to go see the home and kitchen sections of the festival. She and my brother suggested that we split off into two groups and eat on our own while my dad and I said we should eat together as a family because this is what we came for. So, we head on along to the ticket booths where we thought we were going to eat a tons load of asparagus-related foods. Because I volunteered yesterday, I know that each of the asparagus food items cost 6 tickets, and each ticket was $1.00. My brother and I lined up and ended up spending $30 on tickets since the deep-fried asparagus that every other person was carrying around seemed so little.

Because I volunteered yesterday at the festival with two wonderful people from Alpha Phi Omega at a station that served asparagus burritos and beef asparagus sandwiches, I received feedback from two upset customers and a guy friend who I gave one of the burritos I had that the food tasted extremely bland. My brother and my dad initially wanted to try it, but I told them about the feedback I received from yesterday so we decided to go for what the festival was all about: deep-fried asparagus. I forgot to take pictures in the most important part of the festival, so there are no pictures of us eating the asparagus but this is what they looked like.


Credits: Entitee and Queenkv @ Flickr

My brother and I happened to really enjoy it, especially with the Ranch dressing. My dad thought it was alright, but my mom ended up hating it and saw it was nothing special. We sat in a shaded area that was extremely crowded. That worried me because I knew how my parents felt about wanting to be served and not sitting in the grass with everyone else. It wasn’t long though that with two orders of deep-fried asparagus, my brother and I ended up feeling bloated, which was bad since we had 18 tickets left, which could only be spent on asparagus-related items and drinks.

At this point, we agreed we should split off into our two groups. My brother and I decided to head to the boating area, and it was interesting having my brother ask questions about downtown Stockton, and thought the place looked nice. Obviously, he knew it was from a visitor’s point of view because the festival sort of covers up the ghetto-ness which is Stockton.

We wandered into this area where instead of rows of seats like you would find in a normal concert setup, there were rows of haystacks. We were just twenty minutes too late to have witnessed an asparagus eating competition where we heard that the winner ate about 9 pounds of asparagus! That was insane to hear since my brother ate the most asparagus out of all of us and all he could finish before feeling full was 2 ½ deep-fried asparagus, which was probably only a few ounces.



Next, we wandered into the Arts and Crafts section of the festival to look at the local jewelry, clothing, music, paintings, and furniture. I really admired a lot of the stuff that was out there and some of the intricacies and detail put into these things that were absent from the mass productions of Forever 21, Charlotte Russe, and H&M. I was really tempted to buy one and ended up purchasing this really pretty green and gold necklace and earring combo from this one vendor called Chrevan Art Glass for about $20. We met up with our parents for a bit, who told us that there wasn’t much to see in the Home and Kitchen area, which made me kind of sad because the large building made it look like as if there was a huge convention going on inside.



My brother and I then looked around at the other food vendors but were sad that we couldn’t try anything we saw since we were so full from lunch. We came across Mediterranean kebobs, lumpias, frozen ice cream, huge bags of kettle corn. In the Home and Kitchen section of the festival, there were chef demonstrations but we decided not to stick around for those since we were still too full from the asparagus that looked so little that ended up being too much. In there, we had some free samples of Mexican chicken, saw a yogurt drink that we hadn’t seen since we were kids, and got to look at strange vendors that involved termite extermination.

Afterwards, we went around outside to try different flavors of dip this one vendor had and different flavors of cashews, pistachios, and almonds. However, the most amazing food vendor of them all was this one station that sold gigantic drumsticks and meat breasts. I don’t know what animal they were from but I kid you not, these things were massive. We first saw this really tiny Filipino girl eating this massive drumstick that was bigger than her waist, and I wondered where on earth she found something like that. Then, we found the place that sold it, and knew there was no way we could eat it even if we wanted to. Who knew that asparagus would count as an entire meal.



At some point, my brother and I got into this long conversation about Wall-E when he mentioned that he wished he could take one of the golf carts that were parked by the grass to drive around the festival instead of walk. I launched into this whole Wall-E rant about how our lives today are so dependent on technology and Wall-E displays. Just seeing the way people are so dependent on it during the movie made me want to walk around even more, but I went into this whole rant on how the movie also gave an incredibly optimistic message that even after all this time in the movie that humans were dependent on technology, deep down, we appreciate the Earth we’re given and if given the right time and opportunity, we want to live life on Earth to the fullest extent. We want to do something about the Earth we were given. Somewhere in-between all of this, my brother wanted to go on the boat. Don’t ask. It was worth ten tickets, and I said it wasn’t worth driving a little raft around the Stockton port.

OK. Moving on from that mini-rant, after almost circling the entire festival for the second time and having a general idea where everything was, my dad called saying that it was time for us to go. My brother and I began to panic because we had 14 tickets left (4 were spent on drinks). We decided to go back to Asparagus Alley to buy all the stuff we could for no good reason. My brother picked out a burrito and I picked out a bowl pasta that none of us could eat. We had 2 tickets left that my brother spent on water even though I was already carrying 1.5L worth of water in my bag. I was hoping to find Alpha Phi Omega volunteers at the sandwich/burrito station that I volunteered at yesterday but didn’t see any of them there.

We met up with my parents in front of the Home and Kitchen area of the festival before we decided to head out. My mom and I argued about what to do with the pasta and the burrito so we decided to head back to campus to drop it off and bring the stuff I packed from last night to the car. What blew my mind this entire time was that my brother had NEVER seen my room this entire year and I was so sad that last night I took down most of the decorations on my wall. What he saw today was just a sad representation of what my room was like this entire year. Anyhow, the stuff that I packed all to moved to my car in about five minutes, which was much easier than I thought.

Then, I gave my entire family a two-minute tour of the downstairs of Alpha Phi. After that, we hopped back into the car and drove off to 8-Mile Road. My mom was dropped off at Ross while my dad, brother, and I went to Borders. Before we went into Borders, my dad pointed out a Mercedes SUV that looked exactly like the one we were driving. I ignored him until something happened later. Meanwhile, in the store, I managed to grab the May 2009 issue of Vogue with the 9 models on the cover. For the next hour, we got sort of bored wandering around the store, picking out things to look at when I found this:



I took several pictures because I thought it was so hilarious. I want this book but I don’t want to pay for this because I don’t believe a thing that Tyra says about believing in yourself, and even you can become a Victoria’s Secret supermodel.



We got bored enough that my dad and I walked over to Ross while my brother decided to move the Mercedes there. On the way walking there, my brother drove up next to us and told us that he went to the wrong car because apparently, his car keys unlocked not only his own car, but that other identical Mercedes SUV my dad mentioned earlier. My brother said he accidentally got into that car and realized he was in the wrong car before having to scramble out to find our car.

Ross was a semi-successful trip for me, wonderful for my dad, but failed for my brother and mom. I looked for shorts but couldn’t find any that I was willing to wear or the right size. I found three shirts that my dad and brother immediately approved of the moment I tried them on over the shirt I already wore. I’ve never received approval of what I wore so quickly so that had to be a good thing. Out of the three, I only chose two because I had to focus on finding shorts that fit right. My dad ended up buying a couple of shirts and my brother wasn’t in the mood so we wandered to Kohl’s where my parents eventually met up with us. To our surprise, my mom did not buy a single thing from Ross because she complained that she couldn’t fit into their clothes. Uh, oh.

However, she had slightly the same problem at Kohl’s but not as bad. She ended up getting something, which I strongly encouraged her to because I felt that if she didn’t, her self-confidence would be hammered by the fact she couldn’t fit into the clothes like she did a few months ago.

After Kohl’s we decided to head over to China Palace Restaurant. Before went inside, my dad has this obsession with Hollywood Video and their DVD deals so went in there, made a fuss as usual in the DVD section as we always do, and ended up walking out with the latest Indiana Jones movie and Babylon A.D. My dad likes Vin Diesel films. He’s kind of weird. Two funny things that came out of this was that my dad asked me if I was cold and if I needed his jacket. I told him I didn’t need it, and remembered I brought a light sweater with me and pulled it out of my bag. From my dad’s perspective, I’ve been pulling out things from this bag of mine for the entire day, so we had a good laugh about how it seemed like my bag was just like that one Volkswagen commercial where people kept coming out of the car more than what the car could actually hold. My bag just seemed to defy the laws of space because I was pulling out more than what it looked like it could hold.

Anyway, at China Palace, the food there was wonderful and the place was legitimately and authentically Chinese unlike the Oriental Buffet my parents were really fond of. We also heard that Martin Yan was actually in the building at the time we were there because of a wedding reception. I didn’t know who he was and my parents didn’t seem too roused up by that information so I figured he was a Z-list celebrity from my parent’s generation.



Over dinner, we talked about so many things like how our family used to go on vacations so easily, different types of retirement, and what was seen on the Discovery Channel and National Geographics about human longevity. I went into Pre-Pharm mode and explained as non-scientifically as possible the process of why humans genome doesn’t sustain longevity. Pretty much, I summed up three months of Genetics lecture into a three-minute speech on DNA structure and chromosome replication. If my genetics professor heard me say all of this, she would have murdered me because for some reason, I confused the word ‘kinetochore’ with ‘telomere’ the entire time. I felt there was something wrong with the word, kinetochore, being used, but I realized long after the conversation was over that I was trying to say telomere, not kinetochore.

Then, at the end of the dinner, my parents suddenly became really flustered that Martin Yan was in the next room, and that was then they explained to me that the restaurant chain of Yan Can Cook was actually owned by this chef. After trying to find my brother and mom (who were actually in the bathroom), we all went over to ask Martin Yan if we could have a picture with him. I thought it would be bad to interrupt him but then I told my mom, ‘We’re never going to see these people again. Let’s be rude.’ And for once, she agreed so she asked him in the middle of his conversation with an entire table of people if we could have a picture with him. He and this other lady (his wife?) joked with us saying that a picture with him would cost us $10. He was super-friendly and shook hands with all of us. My dad was so awkward though and kept repeating that he watched a lot of his shows on TV. I almost wanted to reply that I’ve never seen his show but I have seen his restaurant (in McCarthy Ranch closed down and was taken over by Red Kwali) but I didn’t. Anyway, he was really friendly, open, and charismatic—totally what you would hope to expect from a guy who has his own TV show and restaurant chain.



On the way back, I was a bit sad that the day came to an end. It started out on a really bad note because I was really frustrated with the way everyone was arguing earlier. However, in the car, I gushed on and on about how I was so happy that my parents came up and that even though the day began poorly, it ended fantastically. I was really left almost on a high because I was having so much fun with them. I didn’t want to go back to the reality of school, tests, and finals, because I enjoyed it that much.

I really do have amazing parents and brother. I don’t know what I’d do without them in my life.

I Love Longs Drugs

After sending out probably over 20 resumes and applying to Walgreens, Target, Costco, Sav-Mart, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Safeway, Stanford Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, random advertisings on Craigslist, going through RX Insider, and local hospitals from Mountain View to Milpitas to Hayward and even to South San Francisco, all I received in return was either silence or that they chose another candidate for the pharmacy technician job position because of this reason:

I'm sorry, you don't have the experience required for the job.

That was it. I had it. I'm going to graduate in 4 weeks and I'm still jobless. I had to go home this recent weekend already to attend Esther's open casket viewing. So, I might as well continue my job hunt. but at this point I was even willing to drive to South San Francisco if I could be a pharm tech so I did something I had never done on Friday afternoon when I got back home from school. I went onto Longs Drugs, typed in my zip code, and found the closest 40 Longs Drugs in a 20-mile radius of my home. I picked up the phone to make the phone call to 22 different Longs Drugs and said:

Me: "Hi, I was wondering if the pharmacy manager is available at the moment?"

Reply: "Yes, hold on a moment/Call back at ____."

Me: "When is the best time I should call back? / Thank you. Hi pharmacy manager, I was wondering if you had any current or future openings for pharmacy technicians?"

Reply: "No, goodbye. / Not at the moment, but we are hiring in June. / You could try the _____ location. / Call the hiring district on Homestead. / Actually, we might be looking for someone. Why don't you come in and fill out an application?"

After taking notes of what happened with each phone call at each location of Longs Drugs, I narrowed down the stores with the only chances of me getting hired...which was only like 5 out of the 22 I called. By the time I got to the 22nd Longs Drugs, I'm getting tired and my brother is wanting to go to the mall. And only 3 of those Longs Drugs asked anything about me beyond the 'hiring in June or a later month' response. My brother finally made the phone call to his gal friend about her parents being pharmacists and if they could help me out. That ultimately fell through as well. The next day, I printed out three copies of my resume and revised huge chunks of it that I realized the career counselor at UOP did not pay much attention to.

I was worried at this point. Really worried. I don't have any experience of being a pharmacy technician and I have no idea what to tell the pharmacists when I knew they were going to ask about past experiences. My parents encouraged me to go to Gilroy to them but I told them that I had to drive to a few Longs Drugs to fill out some applications. A new Coach handbag seemed tempting in my mind but I had to finish this. This was my original plan and goal:

Drive to 3 Longs Drugs, fill out 3 applications, and come back home by 2:ooPM.

So my goal began to fall through when I drove to the first Longs Drugs on my list. The pharmacy technician there was super nice and tried to help me out but the pharmacy manager was gone for the day even though she told me to come in to fill out an application, and the store itself ran out of job applications. I left my resume with them anyway.

Now, here's the good part. Yahoo Maps decided to taunt me by taking me to Homestead Road by giving me the names of 3 streets that did not exist. As a result, I had to call my parents asking them how to get to Homestead Road, because that's where the Longs Drugs Hiring District was. After driving around in circles to find Concord Drive that doesn't exist, trying to call my brother to give me directions but he didn't pick up, and calling my parents who were on their way to Gilroy, I managed to find eventually make it to Homestead Road. Before I continue on my time at Homestead Road, this is the conversation that went on between me and the person on the phone that worked in the hiring district.

Him: "Bring in your resume and we can see where you're needed at which Longs Drugs in this region.
Me: "What time are you open tomorrow?"
Him: "Uhh tomorrow, 10AM to 10PM."
Me: So I can come in tomorrow anytime between that?"
Him: "Umm, yeah."

Slightly disheveled and upset that it took me so long to find Homestead Road, I go inside and spoke to the pharmacy technician.

Me: "Hi, I heard the hiring district is here?"
Pharm Tech: "Yeah, it's closed though. You have to come back Monday. It'll be open then."
Awkward silence.
Me: "OK, I'll figure it out. Thank you."

I turn and was about half-way through the store on my way out when I realized, why don't I just leave my resume here so they can hand it over? I turn around and go back to the pharmacy and just as I go there, I have to wait for the pharmacy technician to finish speaking to one of the patients. For some reason, the pharmacy manager in the back noticed me for the 2nd time and came out asking if there was anything I needed help with. Just when I was about to ask about leaving my resume, I forgot my question so I quickly tried to recover asking:

Me: "Hi, I was wondering if you had any current or future openings for a pharmacy technician?"

Ugh, I could not believe I just asked that. I asked that on the phone yesterday when I called this location and I didn't get the response I wanted. A brief pause of silence settles in and then the pharmacy manager replied:

Pharmacy Manager: "Actually, I think we might need someone. How much experience do you have? Are you still in school? When are you available to work? Do you have your license?"

My jaw was about to fall out of my mouth. Are you kidding me? Oh my goodness, I could not believe what I was hearing but I had to answer honestly and expected the worst. I have no experience, sir, but I really need some experience. That's what I wanted to say but I couldn't so I thought of everything I could to sell myself as a candidate. I'm going to be here all of next year so this won't be just a 2 or 3-month job. I'm going to available on weekdays, weeknights. I can do full-time or part-time. Whatever is most convenient for this pharmacy. And his reply?

Pharmacy Manager: "Let's get the store manager here and have you take the personality test. If you pass that, we can put you through a drug test because it's protocol here and then we can deal with paperwork. We can definitely use you."

I literally wanted to jump up and scream for joy. I'm totally indebt to this pharmacy because they're so willing to give someone out of the blue like me a chance to prove that I can be a good technician despite my lack of experience. I wanted to thank him and jump everywhere and mess things up to show happy I was, but I don't think that would've left the best impression so I simply thanked him and left.

And when I walked out the store, I got to my car, and saw the car keys lying in my front seat.

For the first time in my life, I was so excited about getting a job.

For the first time in my life, I locked myself out of my car. FML.

Initial Goal	Final Goal
Visit 3 Longs Drugs Fill out 3 job applications Give away 3 resumes Be home by 2PM	Visited 2 Longs Drugs Filled out 1 job application Gave away 2 resumes Got home at 4:30PM GOT HIRED!!!

=)

ET

I don't know what to think any more.

I found out at 1:40AM. I haven't even spoken to her since high school but all I can think about now is just how to forget this semester or this year ever happened. The moment I was told about this, the first two words that came to my mind was 'not again'.

I'll come up with something more useful to say next time. I told myself this wasn't a place for this kind of stuff but I don't know where else to put this. Not Facebook although it seems to be convenient for everyone else. One of her friends, Johnny Lazzarini, wrote this on his Facebook:

and i sort of shut down. my bedroom sort of swirled around like somebody had just punched me in the face u know? i had dealt with death loooads of times in my life, pets, family members that kind of thing right. but everybody loses a grandparent at some point, everybody has to face the fact that their dog was hit by a car. we can get over that kind of thing, we eventually understand that thats just sort of how it goes. but when esther died, i realized that what had actually happened meant more then the fact that i couldn't share my life with her anymroe. when she went to college, none of us stayed in the greatest contact with her, and it wasn't just her either. when everybody moved away to start their new lives outside of hs, we really missed out on the part where your supposed to make new friends but keep the old ones you know? well when she died, everybody that knew her felt a nasty shock. how could we miss this? how could we let a change in location ruin all of the relationships we had built up over the years.

i feel like esther's death is sort of making us realize how important it is to cherish each other, and the time that we spend with one another. esther showed me how precious time really is. in an instant her life was claimed by a heart attack, nobody saw it coming. suddenly i wished i could have hung out with her for more then i had, all i would have wanted was a few minutes to tell her how i felt about her and everything she meant to me. a few days ago it was esther, but who knows what tomorrow could bring? could it be me? or you? it is SO important to never forget bonds that you've built. every day you miss talking to somebody who was close to you, you grow further apart. and one day, like i did last night when i recieved the news of esther's passing, you'll look back on how lost everybody is and remind yourself as to how easy it would have been to just make a phone call or send a message.

and, sometimes, ignorance is bliss. i'm not sure why she had a heart attack, i kinda dont want to know, feel me? then i'd just want somebody to blame for her death, whether it was esther or somebody else or god. really that's only going to make mourning her worse, and esther isn't the sort of person who would want us to feel bad about her leaving us. she would want us to keep living life to the fullest, just as she did, living every day like it could be our last so we have no regrets. esther was beautiful inside and out, and the fact that somebody so fantastic could be gone in an instant made me realize how important each and every one of you is to me in the same way. instead of being saddened by her death, let's all celebrate esther's life and remember all the good times we shared. and from now on, to show our respect, let's try our hardest to stay in good contact with each other.

I don't want to think about things like this so soon. If I could, I want to go back to being 15 years old again and getting an A in Algebra 2 be the most difficult thing going on in my life.

Childhood Obsessions: Part 2: Food

I'm not sure how many parts of my childhood I feel like documenting over the next couple journal entries but one thing I want to make sure I had down were traditions before I forget them. These occured during my childhood that faded away over time either because I had grown out of the traditions or my parents and grandparents didn't see the need to continue them any longer because of how our lives had changed since we came to America.

One thing that I do want to remember from my elementary school experiences was how I treated food. Like in my previous entry, I had a great dislike of Chinese foods because of the huge amount I had to consume all the time yet at the same time adored the McDonald's that my parents fed me twice a day along with the cakes and doughnuts I got for breakfast and snacks. It truly is some kind of miracle that I didn't develop Type II Diabetes but as a result, I do have much bigger problems with digestion and going to the bathroom more than anyone else in my family does, along with other digestive tract problems I won't disclose here.

One of the most magical things I discovered when I was young was gum. I treated gum differently then than I do now. This was because yesterday, I bought a pack of gum that I hadn't tried in the longest time and this was the first brand of gum I ever tried (and swallowed).



After this past year of going through countless packets of the endless flavors of Stride, 5, Dentyne, and Eclipse, the moment I popped a piece of Wrigley's in my mouth, the soft creamy sensation sent me straight back to 2nd grade when I cycled around the driveways of the town houses in San Jose as my super old grandparents stood outside and yelled at their friends in Chinese to stay for a few more hours. It was one of the most nostalgic feelings I had in the longest time and it made me miss a lot of the traditions I had in my childhood, which is totally a whole different entry. So this moment solidified that I will not be satisfied with any other gum unless if it's the cheap 25 cent gum from Wrigley's and it will actually stay in my mouth for more thatn 5 minutes.

The second childhood comfort food that I had was one thing that my mom often made then but doesn't make much of anymore. It was the combination of having Bovril and porridge. Since the whole Mad Cow Disease fiasco in Europe, Bovril had to change the composition of its extract from yeast instead of bovine. The extract would be added to the porridge and I would drink bowls of this at a time like it was water. It was the one Chinese dish I liked as a child, and the repeated exposure to Bovril made it that to this day, I cannot have rice or porridge unless it's been overdosed with condiments.



The next thing on the list was sugar doughnuts and Chinese pastries that my mom often brought back from work because the someone at work always brought too many in, and because my parents really struggled with finances when we first came to the States, all of these sorts of foods were inexpensive and made it easy for us to fill our stomachs up quickly before we could manage to eat out all the time like we do now.

Despite all of the different flavors of doughnuts that I encountered during high school and even the Krispy Kreme phase, my absolute favorite is still the sugar doughnut, followed by the cheap glazed kind. Not the kind that Krispy Kreme kind where the layers were perfect, but the kind where the glaze fell off the doughnut when you picked it up and the layer was barely noticeable on the piece itself.



Then, came the Chinese pastries that my mom often ordered every time we went to Ranch 99 Supermarket. The Swiss roll came in many different flavors like vanilla and strawberry. I was always arguing with my mom at ends about which one to pick because my mom preferred vanilla, while I preferred strawberry. She usually ended up having her way because it was her money.



There are two other ones I signficantly remember: flavored bread and this one cake where one side was chocolate, the other side was white, and was sealed in the middle by a thin layer of vanilla cream. I remember always eating the chocolate side first (or not eating it at all) and then save the vanilla part as the best for last. I never liked the flavored bread that much as a kid so I never ended up snacking on it like my mom hoped I would.

An honorable mention to this list of childhood comfort foods I had was the white pomfret that my mom often ordered grilled from the Chinese supermarket. This is still probably my favorite fish because of the influences I had from my childhood. Chinese dinner would be the best in the entire world when the white pomfret was involved and it was something I always requested from my parents whenever I could.



Lastly, was the classic McDonald's Happy Meal that never let me down. I always had to get the toy that came with the package and the cheery M signs never ceased to make my day. It was the standard: hamburger/cheeseburger, fries, and a small drink that I had for lunch AND after school. I would also go to McDonald's or Burger King for breakfast (although BK was more of a breakfast tradition) and try to collect as many of the Monopoly pieces as I possibly could hoping one day to win something greater than a medium-sized soft drink. That never happened. However, I remember there being this one McDonald's in Sunnyvale that I would go to all the time as a child and everyone in there remembered me by name and had my order ready before my dad could pull the car up to the drive-thru window.



I remember also arguing with my parents every time I ever decided to get the 6-piece chicken nuggets. My parents would only get me Sweet-and-Sour sauce, which I was accustomed to until my friends in elementary school introduced to me BBQ sauce. For some reason, my parents didn't like that and again, they usually ended up having it their way where I ended up dipping all my food in Sweet-and-Sour sauce but when they're not around, the BBQ sauce returns. Another quirk I had as a child was also removing the pickle in the center of the hamburger whenever I could. I never liked vegetables in my sandwiches for some reason, and having a pickle in there disrupted the balance.

McDonald's breakfast was also a slice of heaven especially since I every time I went there, I would have my predictable combination of 1 Apple Pie and 2 hashbrowns or just as many hashbrowns as I could handle. I loved both Burger King's and McDonald's and often couldn't decide between the two, but I was never sold on the pancakes and the Egg McMuffin's. I felt sick when I ate them as a child so my options were pretty limited then and it frustrated my parents seeing that I preferred just a pile of hashbrowns rather than a sandwich, the same way that I preferred a pile of French fries over a hamburger (even though I enjoyed both just as much).



In addition, the French Toast sticks at Burger King was also another comfort food, and those are something I'm sorely missing today, which is why I probably compensate every time I go to Denny's. I always end up ordering French toast no matter how bad it was for me. And I always ran out of syrup.

Childhood Obsessions: Part 1: Beanie Babies

Something that used to intrigue me when I was younger (and still somewhat has a strange spell over me) were stuffed animals. I remember that when I was a kid, I used to tell my parents that the reason why people had a lifelong fascination with stuffed animals was because they mimicked life. They had a face that we could relate to so we feel that something intangible is staring back at us whenever we look into their black beady eyes. My parents probably thought I was crazy and just gave me more stuffed animals to have fun with.

Out of all the stuffed animals though, only select groups really grabbed my attention. The biggest focus of this entry though will reside with the infamous Beanie Babies of the late 90's. I have over a 100 of them and have probably spent more than $2000 worth on them because of the current hype and my dad's unusual fixation with wanting to buy everything as a collection, which is why he has stacks of completely useless books like Paganism, Dog Dictionaries, and Heraldry in his office and at home that have only served the purpose of collecting dust. He bought into the hype like I did and also spent that extra hundreds of dollars keeping the majority of my Beanie Babies in those plastic cases because they were all 'future investments'.

Even though I hardly recognize any of the new Beanie Babies that were out, these ones that I bought were my very first ones and they will always have a special place. One of them was unfortunately stolen back in 5th grade, but I'll always remember the original two that started it all.
These two are my ultimate two out of my three favorites because not only did they start it all, I took these two everywhere with me. They had a meaning that was more special for this than any of the other ones that my parents got me. Ironically, I don't have Zip, the black cat, at all because it was stolen so long ago. For some reason, I never ended up replacing it.

Then, came the Teenie Beanie Babies promotion that was run at McDonald's. I don't think I ever had so much McDonald's in my life and I don't quite remember if I collected all 10 that everyone went crazy searching for. I just remember people being super excited about trying to collect all 10 Teenie Beanie Babies and throwing away the McDonald's food in the process. Incidents like this was only support that I should have ate myself into Type II Diabetes but miraculously it never came, and soon after the promotion was over, I stopped going to McDonald's for a while.

Several other Beanie Babies had a special signficance for me because of the context that surrounded their purchases. Therefore, here's a list of Beanie Babies I've valued over all the others for different reasons. Zip and Inch.

Scottie was the black terrier that my dad's father bought for me when my dad refused to in front of all our relatives. My grandfather decided to act like a grandfather and spoiled me with getting Scottie. I remember I didn't even like this one that much but because he got it for me, I've always reembered that act of grandfather-liness that this one had more meaning than the other ones did.
Bubbles was one of the more prized possessions of my Beanie Babies because of it's value and how I discovered the art of deception by making an unfair trade with one of my friends to obtain it. Around the time when Pokemon first started emerging into the scene, my dad returned from Taiwan with a bunch of unreleased Pokemon games (versions Gold and Silver) in Japanese. My guy friend in 5th grade, Garron, wanted the untranslated Pokemon games so badly and I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted Bubbles or Goldie (the two original fish). Of course, the deception was that I didn't tell him that I had another set of the untranslated Pokemon games, so I hyped up the trade as if I would be on the losing end if the trade were to happen. He agreed and every time I look at Bubbles, I think of how I had successfully and hilariously at the length I had gone to commit my first significant act of lying and deceiving a friend.

The next few were ones that I adored regardless of the reasons I bought them. There was something about them that made me completely infatuated with them from Day 1, and whenever I dig through my closet and lay eyes on them, the same feelings I felt from the moment I bought them could be felt today.

My mom was vehemently against my purchase of Beanie Babies that my dad and I would often have to hide them from her authority. However, there were two that she had bought for me. Ziggy was bought at the San Francisco International Airport when we were waiting for my dad to return from an overseas business trip and Nanook was bought at a store next to my mom's favorite store, Ross. Nanook doesn't really quite make the list but the signficance is the same to me.

The last four that make up the list that really sort of defined my collection was Princess Di and Brittania. Princess Di was the most my dad has ever allowed me to spend on a Beanie Baby. I don't think he ever told me the real price of it, because every time I've asked him, the number always seemed to change. It went from $50 to $100 and one time, I could've sworn he said $150. To date, it was the most I ever spent on a bag of beans, and it's my third most prized bear that my dad has given to me. Britannia was the one Beanie teddy that I had always coveted but was never able to have until many years later. I have a long wish list of Beanies that I still wished to have but none of them reached to the level I wanted from Britannia.


Valentino and Erin are in their own categories not because one of them had a name that reminded me today of a familiar couture designer that I happen to worship every season, but because Valentino was my first Beanie Baby teddy bear. I remember buying it for $20 at the Sunnyvale Mall at a store that is beyond bankrupt and closed by now. Erin was the 2nd most I had ever spent on a Beanie Baby that my dad had to buy from a colleague for $70 because she was sold out everywhere at that time. As much as this was a sign that I was probably way too spoiled for my own good, I really appreciated today how much my dad was willing to go out of his way to be ripped off by his own colleague to make sure I was happy with getting the Beanie Babies that everyone else wanted. I can't imagine doing this for my own kids but it makes me appreciate these select few even more.



It's funny how I did crazy things in my childhood experiences but I felt that the Beanie Babies I bought were proof that my parents had it in them to really believe that there was a face to each Beanie Baby, which made them so unique and that we strived so mcuh to have them all together in one collection. Of course, we were never able to achieve that but it was certainly fun at that time, and it did bring us together somewhat over all the many Happy Meals and the many conventions we went to that sold these things.

Prince "Guntars Asmanis" Charming

This is more of a silly blog entry about something that's been on my mind ever since I was a kid. I think every girl has their picture of Prince Charming in their mind ever since they discovered Disney princesses, stone castles, and unicorns. I had this image of Prince Charming in my mind and over time, he's changed. Sometimes I like to think about him so much that when someone asks me if I have a special someone, I'm almost inclined to say 'yes', but then remember that P. Charming only exists in my head, and when I do meet this actual guy, he won't look anything or be much like P. Charming at all.

So, this is a blog entry about P. Charming. This is going to be embarassing but it's OK because every girl's got a piece of him too. They're just not willing to share their secret relationship with him. I may not share everything about him either because I don't want people to know everything about this guy. I certainly wouldn't want my family reading this and getting a kick out of every single wish I had that my dream guy would have. So the qualities of P. Charming that I'm going to list here are going to be totally childish and superficial because in my mind, he's perfect. Whenever I hear that Katy Perry song of how he's going to rescue me from boredom, this is who I envision.

Name: I'm not revealing this part. That's only because there's someone I know who actually has this name and my feelings toward that person are entirely unrelated to P. Charming's real name.

Age: He'd be young forever. He'd be my age or up to four years older partly because that's how much older my dad is in comparison to my mom's age. Any more than that and I think my parents would begin to worry.

Job/Career: This boy would be a model. He'd be the more fit version of Sean Opry because Sean Opry I feel is the right kind of size. Sean may not be toned but he's the right size since I feel like Abercrombie models are too obsessed with the gym and high fashion male models are too skinny and/or too manly looking to the point that their faces look weird. However, he'd be so versatile that he could model for high fashion and get me free stuff from the fashion shows all the time. Miuccia Prada and Karl Lagerfeld would totally love his face the way they loved Sasha's. However, because he's thinking about his future, he actually wants to get his degree in Bioengineering and possibly consider working for a large biotech company.

Talents: Not only can he model, he also loves singing and playing the guitar. The thing that is so great about him is that he models only part-time because he sees modelling as a short-lived career so he wants to make the most out of his intelligence by going to college and using the money he earns from modelling to pay his way through school.

Appearance: He'd have black/brown hair. I don't really care too much about the hair color so I think in my mind, his hair color is always changing but I envision more black/brown than I envision blonde. P. Charming's hair is usually the classic blonde, but I think the hottest guys today all got brown hair or darker shades. His facial structure would have a combination of strong features but ultimately has a soft look to them. I'd have to like his hair too and I don't know why that's a big deal. Maybe it's because I don't want him bald? Although if it was that guy from Prison Break, I wouldn't mind too much either. I don't care too much for eye color but blue eyes are always nice. I might prefer green because no one's eyes are green anymore.

You know what, forget this. This is who I think about when I think about P. Charming.

This guy (not P. Charming) is Guntars Asmanis, who has modeled for Hugo Boss and Kenzo and has walked for the big names like D&G. He's the face who I envision in my mind 50% of the time.

The other 50% is a boy that I've spoken to only twice in my life but he lives in Canada now and there's no way he'd remember me. There's no way my parents would ever approve of him because he doesn't go to college and behaves like a childish girl, which is not really a preference high on my list. To protect his privacy, I'm not going to post his picture here. He might discover this and track me down...which sometimes in my mind, sounds like a good idea.

Of course, I have more things going on about P. Charming whenever I listen to Taylor Swift songs but besides that, he's 100% imaginary. He's there whenever I want to think about him, and conveniently vanishes when I want.

Image credits: skywardprodigal.livejournal.com, urban-tease.blogspot.com

Native Food

I remember when I was younger (a.k.a. a few years ago, back in high school), I had this immensive dislike for Chinese food because I was often forced to eat my share of white rice, the same sort of wet, drippy cooking that my mom liked to put together every single weekday. What made my dislike of it even greater was of my culturally-ignorant non-Asian peers who would try to convince me that I was missing out on their favorite oriental dishes: white rice, orange chicken, and teriyaki sauce.

I remember there was this one time when I worked in the legal department at Maxim Integrated Products as an intern, the other intern I worked with was absolutely bewildered at my dislike of Chinese food. Again, she, like my high school peers who only knew the world of P.F. Chang's, Mr. Chau's, and Panda Express, said how she enjoyed white (or fried) rice, orange or teriyaki chicken, and California rolls. When the entire department, her, and I went to grab dim sum, she immediately cringed and grew suspicious of all the Chinese food before her. She predictably poked at her Ha Gao with her obvious choice of a fork utensil, and wonder if the shrimp inside was edible. She then asked me if any of this food was safe to eat, and mentally I roll my eyes at every single fear she had about chicken feet, pork buns, egg tarts, and tofu deserts. Thank you for trying to correct my dislike of Chinese food when pork buns seem unsafe to eat.

However, the people who found my initial dislike of Chinese food to be strange had a point. Usually, people from different nationalities prefer their own culture's food more than other ethnic foods. And because I am Chinese, it seemed odd that I disliked my own ethnic food.

But ever since I was young, I actually did prefer my own culture's food over others. Even to this day, my favorite food to have is Malaysian. My whole family is from Malaysia and a lot of the dishes my mom put together when dinner wasn't involved, had Malaysian influences, and those were my favorite dishes of hers at that time. I really enjoyed the variety of sauces and curry and meats that Malay foods had to offer that foods from other cultures didn't have. Of course, because of the Indian and Thai influences, it's no surprise that I liked Indian and Thai food as well despite how spicy they are (but it makes the meal all the more fun to have).

The reason why I brought this up was because this last weekend, my parents and I went to a Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant that has been around since I remembered moving to Milpitas. Banana Leaf has always been my first or second favorite restaurant (Nyo Nya was my first for a while, but its owner lost Nyo Nya due to his gambling habits) and since I haven't eaten there in years, the food brought back many memories of me from early grade school when I could have all the Roti Canai and Beef/Chicken satay sticks that I could want.

`

Another thing that I didn't like as a kid but I really love now is the appetizer dish called the Nasi Lemak where a bowl of coconut rice is served with one whole cold hard-boiled egg that's already been diced, a handful of peanuts, and beef w/ curry. It's the best thing in the world. Over dinner, my dad told me that this was the typical breakfast food he had in Malaysia when he was growing up there. His mom would make this for him and he would mix all of the parts together which made the dish end up resembling fried rice, only messier, and not really fried. He would have this every day and I told him if I had this every day, I'd be the happiest camper ever.

The last dish was sort of our main entree along with this other dish that my mom ordered that tasted pretty oily. This one though was the typically good plate of noodles that Malay chefs would drown in sodium, soy sauce, and all that good fattening stuff. Chow Kueh Teow is the dish that my parents have to order every time we go to a Malaysian restaurant along with the Nasi Lemak, the Roti Canai, and the Beef/Chicken Satay.

And lastly, I used to love this stuff as a kid, but my newfound love for Nasi Lemak sort of replaced this. I had this every day for breakfast when I was in Malaysia last summer for 2 weeks. In my opinion, it was better than any Denny's or dining hall breakfast that I had in America but it obviously goes with my preference for my own country's food rather than 'foreign food' (aka that country across the Pacific Ocean). The Hainan Chicken Rice at Banana Leaf is the closest I've ever gotten to my homeland's chicken rice. It falls short by a mile compared to the ones they make in rural parts of Malaysia because the soy sauce in Malaysia has a mix of salty and sweet textures in their soy sauce that I didn't think was possibly good until I tried it.

And I don't consider it real chicken rice if the it tastes like faint chicken and white. It's got to be yellow. White and chicken-tasting doesn't cut it.

Image credits: softrice.wordpress.com, flickr, hungerhunger.blogspot.com, feedmelah.com, newasiancuisne.wordpress.com

Beautifugly

In this last week, in the time span of three days, I received two compliments that made me think twice about my self-esteem--in a good way though. I was talking about this with my parents and my brother because this issue has always been on my mind ever since I became aware that people noticed someone who was pretty or ugly. For me, that awakening began in 5th grade when I remember this girl who insisted she be called Kaylee (I forgot her real name) who was really popular with my class but always criticized people who complimented her.

So what took me back to this personal topic was what two really good friends of mine said to me spontaneously. The two conversations went something like this.

Conversation 1.
Her: You look fine. You lost weight and you're pretty.
Me: Really? That's nice, thanks, but I don't believe you.
Her: No, I mean it when I say it.
Me: I guess so but I just don't believe it when people tell me that.
Her: You know me. When do I ever hand out compliments like that? Just take it.

Conversation 2.
Him: I always wonder if appearance plays a big role in getting someone.
Me: I think it does because if I looked any better I wouldn't have a problem.
Him: No, don't worry about your appearance. Really, you look better than you think you do. Don't worry about that.
Me: Really, you think so?
Him: Yeah, don't worry, your appearance isn't the problem. I've seen many people that look much worse. Don't worry, you look fine.

That was about how those conversations went and it's so hard to have those kind of conversations because when you talk about someone's appearance, it's so personal. It's really personal to me because of what I went through in junior high and what I grew up believing because of circumstances in my life that made me convinced, 'Gosh, they are right. I really am hideous. These pictures just prove it too.'

It started in 6th grade, but the part where I successfully convinced myself I must be grotesque to look at was in 7th grade. No one knew this about me (until now). I was talking to my brother about this in the car that during 6th and 7th grade, I was bullied quite a bit which is probably why I have much more pessimistic outlook and much more defensive today. The people who I liked and trusted during junior high were the ones responsible for this sort of insecurity I've always had and continue to have today. Ever since the summer after 6th grade, I was always convinced that I looked terrible. I would mentally cringe at every picture I saw of myself. I still do now, because if one thing that hasn't changed, it's my mentality that I wholeheartedly believe I am not someone pleasant to look at. I am that dehumanizing word called ugly. I still believe this somewhat to a certain degree today.

The first feedback I ever got about my appearance was when one of my friends in 6th grade had a crush on this guy that I had a secretly liked as well but encouraged her to go for him anyway. When she found out about my little secret, she went ahead and had other girls find out what he thought of me and her. I was told that he said about us: he thought she was pretty and kind of liked her but doesn't like girls right now. When it came to me, he said I looked weird and was an idiotic idiot.

The summer after sixth grade, I went to a summer camp at Stanford that included a curriculum for speech and debate and public speaking. There was a boy I had a huge crush on. His name was Kirk Kasuya I think. I might have the first name wrong. Anyway, I had the biggest crush on him, and thought he liked me somewhat in return, that was, until the summer camp was over. We connected through e-mail and he told me that he didn't remember which one I was out of the three Asian girls that hung out together. He said one of them was so pretty, and the other one had a flat face, gray hair, and was really ugly. He never mentioned anything about the third one so thinking that I obviously didn't have gray hair, I said that I was the third one. He replied the following day, saying that he remembered me now that I was the ugly girl with the flat face and gray hair and that he wished he could talk to the girl in my group that was so pretty. That was the second feedback I ever got about my appearance from someone outside of my family.

During seventh grade, the same incident was repeated. During family groups (which was this thing my school did by separating the entire student body into groups that included a few people from each grade level so that all the grades could interact with each other every week), two girls who I considered my friends at that time were talking about what her boyfriend said about every girl in our Asian group.

Girl 2: So what did he say I look like?
Girl 1: My boyfriend said your face reminded him of a fish. But guess who he said was the ugliest?
Girl 2: Who? Tell me!
Girl 1 pointed to me with both fingers: You. He also said that your head was huge, it probably weighs heavier than all of ours.

I grew convinced that that's why no one else liked me. I was seriously a defect and I still believe it somewhat to this day despite how confident people say they think I am about myself. Whenever someone was asked a question during an online quiz they took about me, if I was pretty, if they were to reply that I was 'cute' instead of 'pretty', I became used to the idea that 'cute' was a nice way of saying ugly. However, ever since I came to college, there has been a small collection of evidence that has contradicted what has been said to my face during 6th and 7th grade.

First of all, a guy that I dated during freshman year said that for an Asian girl, I had really pretty eyes. I told him it was nice of him to say that, but I didn't believe him. I remember being confused why someone like him, who was really cute, would be remotely interested in me, the ugliest Asian girl in my junior high class with braces and everything.

Fastforward to the summer after freshman year when I got into a bit of a fender-bender in Stockton after getting lunch from In-N-Out. After I pulled over and parked at WaMu with the other car involved in the accident, the guy who was a passenger in the other car was talking on the phone telling his friend that he was going to be late and that he felt bad for this pretty-looking Asian girl that bumped into his mom's car. I pretended that I made that up. Part of me still thinks I heard it wrong and I just made it up in my mind to make myself feel better about that incident.

Fastforward to summer after my sophomore year, I was hired to work at Hollister. If there was any place I felt more uncomfortable at, it was at Hollister and Abercrombie in that every time I walked into those stores, I would be slightly intimidated by the pretty people working on those stores. I remember sitting through the group interview thinking that out of all of these people, I was really the ugliest one. What chance did I have? Then, I got hired, and realized 'Wow, despite their infamous "looks" policy. maybe I'm not that hideous. But they'll probably put me in the back anyway.' However, on my first day, they put in the front where they put the greeters. In my mind, I saw that had to mean that they were confident enough with my appearance that they'd put me to work out in the front where all the customers could see me. I remember I used to be intimidated by the greeters because they were so polished and pleasant to look at. And now, I'm standing where they are? So how do I react to this contradicting information about my appearance? Well, they had to put someone out on the floor and besides, they had no one else to greet at that moment.

Then fall of that same year comes around and I began to go over to the Alpha Phi House frequently. In my mind, in order to be in a sorority you had to have the qualities of being pretty or at least just dress the part. When they invited me to join their house, I wondered, 'do I really look like a sorority girl?' What was my response to this contradicting information? 'Well, I've seen ugly sorority girls so I guess I just have the style and the personality down right.'

Then comes this last week where my two close friends on separate occasions say really nice things about how I look. I'm not used to it. I don't know if I still believe it now. Honestly, I still think I might have somehow made all this stuff up and/or there was a reason those things happened because I just happened to be at the right place and time, but in reality, I still am ugly to look at.

It's a terrible insecurity that I don't think I can ever get over. I don't think any girl or guy ever gets over this insecurity entirely especially when this culture bases so much of our interactions on how we look whether we like to believe it or not. I don't think constantly think about how my face looks but once in a while, it does bother me to the point where I wonder, why does my face look like this? Why can't I be pretty like Gemma Ward or Natasha Poly? Why am I not photogenic? Is it true I really have to accept the fact I'm ugly and be done with? I wish I wasn't.

But after what those two friends of mine have said this week, they've done something invaluable for me. They've reassured me one thing, that even though I'm not convinced I'm pretty in any way, they've allowed me to be more comfortable with myself. They've allowed me to believe almost, that I'm simply not ugly.

I wish I could go back 8 years and tell myself that. I remember how crushed and sad I was when I was told those things. I wish I could go back and tell the 7th grade version of me and tell her not to worry because those people have not seen how much prettier she'll become and that there will come the day where she will not be the ugliest Asian girl in the class.

I hope that another 8 years from now, I can convince myself that I'm pretty because I'm at peace about it.

Wish List

So again I have another exam within about 7 hours and here I am on my blog again because I believed studying for Psychology was going to take me 4 hours but it ended up only taking me 45 minutes. After this, I'll probably take a nap again, let the information incubate, and then repeat what I just did before deciding to procrastinate.

During Physio lecture yesterday, while my professor was going on and on about the cardiovascular system, I started thinking about the kind of clothes that Vlada Roslyakova wore.



I know that's probably not what my parents paid for me to do when taking notes during class, but I couldn't help but think of how incredibly narrow my range and choice in clothings are. Looking at these pictures makes me really want to purchase a fur jacket even though no one in California owns a fur jacket and not to mention that I'll probably be gunned down by PETA for some ridiculous reasoning that my life isn't equivalent to that of an animal's. But really, I couldn't help but think of how limited fashion in America is like and how much people get scrutinized and judged when they want to improve their appearance. Who're you doing this for? Why get dressed up for class? Why look nice at all? Who're you trying to impress? Do you think looking nice is going to get you anywhere? What's the point of looking nice when no one around you cares? Why are you wasting effort thinking about how you look when you're at school to study? And my mom's favorite reused phrase, 'you think you're dressing up for some kind of parade?'

When did it really become more socially acceptable for the average person to not place any effort into how they look? It's not like it took me an extra 30 minutes to pick out the right outfit although I have had my fair share of mornings where I couldn't decide what to wear but the same can be said for those who couldn't decide which sweatpants would match best with their gym tank top and tennis shoes. There seems to be a disconnect between people who dress sloppy and how relatable they are to other people. The worse you look, the more approachable you become because the assumption is that you aren't consumed enough by your appearance that people will find you more open to talk to. However, I think that assumption was made out of the insecurities of people with ugly clothing who'd like to make themselves feel better about their wardrobe malfunction.

But anyway, the reason why I brought any of this up and felt like I had to justify myself for daydreaming about what Vlada Roslyakova wore during Physio, was because of what I was doing in my downtime after yesterday's Calc exam. H&M has their new spring collection online and I am absolutely in love with some of the safari styles that they have. It only upsets me that there aren't more stores like H&M and I'm sort of tired of resorting to Forever 21 as my default store. Urban Outfitters would have been next on my list but considering that the typical dress + leggings combination would cost me over a $100, it's obviously become more convenient to find a similar pairing in Forever 21 for $30.

It made me suddenly envious of people living in Europe who have massive amounts of boutique stores that they can choose from. One of my favorite online stores to look at is Topshop because it has this quirky sense of style that I feel I could totally relate with. It has this interesting, unique vibe to it that differs from the cookie-cutter stores like American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie, Hollister, Aeropostale, Old Navy, and heaven-forbid Gap, that all immortalized the culture of sweat pants, plain t-shirts, and absence of creativity in all of their clothing. Even Zara as well has a funky vibe to it whenever I look through their catalogue and find the way that their mixture of clothing suddenly bring out this sense of individual style in the person that it makes me want to just move to New York and live there for the rest of my life.

So, my goal over the summer would be to hit up these places and see how I can have fun redefining my sense of style for the next few years. Sure, I will still be drawn to the glowing windows of Forever 21 and H&M's more high fashion look. However, I want to expand on the choices I have in the way I wear certain things. This may not happen but looking at the way someone like Vlada wears her clothes makes me want to rethink how many years I have left to dress young before I become a flabby, wrinkly old soccer mom with 8 kids.

Stores to shop at for the summer:
1. Topshop (if I can get to New York somehow)
2. Zara
3. Aritzia/tna
4. Mango
5. Boutique stores in random Asian malls and Santa Cruz