Happy New Year!!!

As many of you know, I am currently on a plane. But because blogspot is awesome, I've been able to preset the time when I want this to be published. So ....

WARNING: There will be A LOT embarrassing pictures of me. Prepare for your eyes to be assaulted!!!

Saying Goodbye

And don't worry! It's not too long or sappy!

I have actually had a request to see what I looked like before I came to NYC. Luckily for those who made the request, packing allows you to find such photos. So here we go, back to South Pasadena High School circa 2001/2002!!!!

(Sorry Pamela, Roz, Rudy, and everyone else in these pics!!!)

And while you're cracking up, let me take the time to explain that this was for Color Day, which was the most patriotic day for our high school. We were the Tigers and our colors were orange and black (which were just awful) and on this day you were supposed to go all out with school spirit.

My two best friends from HS. We called ourselves "The Drama Shorties" because we were in the Drama program and we're all about 5ft tall. That's Rudy on the left and Roz on the right.

Hey, laugh all you want at the costumes. We won the "Best Costume" prize for our grade!!! 

Roz is even wearing the "medal" we won that morning. Woot. Plastic orange plates with a "Best Dressed" label glued onto it ... our school passed out the best prizes ...

This is my twin, Pamela. We played twins in Peter Pan because we were both in the Drama program and Asian - which meant that we looked the most alike. Sad, huh? That's small town syndrome fer ya! ;0)

Incidentally, I was still able to see without glasses then. I'm blind as a bat now!

Some buddies in Cambria. See why I missed CA?

High School Graduation - The picture that everyone has.

Just for fun, I thought it'd be cool to juxtapose that picture with my college 

graduation pic:

My parents look exactly the same. 

I just look older. Oh, and I started wearing make-up. Lol!

And yes, Dad, I have my mother's nose.

I think the one person that I really do have to mention in my "Goodbye to NYC" is Mr. Derrick Karg - whom I've affectionately nicknamed "Fuzzyhead" because his hair has been for the most part, just out of control.

Note: His hair is different in almost every picture I have of him.

Dear Fuzzyhead,

You have literally become one of two men in my life who I consider to be one of my brothers. You were one of my first friends in New York and one of the very few people from school with whom I am still close with. You have stuck by me through hard times, seen me at my worst, and was with me during some of my best times in New York. You exposed me to many new things such as your taste in music, favorite ebaum's world videos, and other random stuff that I didn't really like. Hahaha! You were with me for my first snow experience and showed me how to toboggan. Granted, you didn't tell me that I had to roll off the damn thing at the bottom of the hill. So you watched me bounce off the ground from the impact and laughed when I landed on my face several feet away - jerk!

And of course, who could forget the red hair??? Holy frickin' cow! Talk about becoming infamous by association. The stupid things we did during freshman year - I was highly amused by the fact that the rest of my college career was plagued with "Hey! You're that girl that hung out with that guy who dyed his hair red!". And folks, he had me re-dye his hair not once, but twice! And both times he forgot to bring me a glove!!!! So what did I do??? I dyed his hair and walked around with red hands for a couple of weeks. It definitely gave me a headache then, but I guess you learn to let these little things go. Maybe it's my turn for revenge??? Look at yourself, bro! Hahaha! (And let's negate the fact that he talked me into dying a lock of my own hair. God, we look like dorks!)

You and your family took me in when I was looking for comfort and familiarity. I can not express how grateful I am to your family and most especially, to you. I look back at our past 6 years and I remember times when we laughed, cried, fought, comforted each other, and times when I just wanted to strangle you! School was definitely a rough experience because it was just so much damn work! I couldn't have asked for a better person to struggle through it with. And looking at our pictures now, I kinda see why everyone thought we were dating. Funny how you never see things when you're in the situation. Haha! I love you and I'm so blessed to have you in my life.

See??? We frickin' look like a couple!!! And why are we hugging a tree?!?!? (Don't answer that question!)

And with that, I sign off to New York City. Perhaps some day in the near future I'll be living here again (how ironic would that be???). Just watch, I'm gonna get a gig and with the way my luck goes, the project is going to ship me back out to the Big Apple. (I'll be so annoyed if that happens!) At least now, I know that I have friends out on this coast and that I will never again have to be as terrified as I was when I came here 6 years ago. I will be okay, no matter where life takes me.

Queens, Bronx, & Rikers Island

Happy New Year!

2009

Drama that Comes With the Holidays

My parents are coming to town in 2 days. It doesn't feel like Christmas because I'm not going back to LA for the holidays. This year it will sort of feel like we skipped Christmas and 2009 will start. I feel completely ambivalent and emotions are just a big jumbled mess. C'est la vie, no?

My parents and I will be driving to Maryland, then to Williamsburg, VA, and then back up to Shelton, CT to spend Christmas Day with the Karg's. I have no idea why we're doing this, I'm just tagging along. Most of all, I'm at a total loss as to why we're going to Williamsburg, VA and I'm not sure if we're going to colonial Williamsburg, or actual Williamsburg. My mother is kinda eccentric. In any case, let's hope I can get through spending an entire week in a car with her.

In other news, Noel and I are doing okay. I spent a month falling apart, but it looks like we'll definitely be able to become friends when I get back to CA. It'll be difficult but I think with time we'll pull through. He is, and was a great person for me to be around and I'm thankful that our break up wasn't any worse than it was. It's interesting to find, though, that after a month, I realized that I don't want the relationship to continue either. I think I've been bitten by the "single bug" or something. Basically my attitude has been "I'm free!". Haha. Adding to my jumble of emotions is that I also met someone else out here - already. I know ... for some reason my life gets slightly dramatic when I'm not exclusively dating someone. I'm a bit sad to be leaving the new guy because I'm a die-hard romantic and I always want to see where things go. Well, as they say, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, right? There is no way in Hell that I'll be doing another long distance relationship. I think 5 years of doing long distance has filled my long distance quota for life. If anything, I need to keep reminding myself that men will come and go, but I will always have my career - and I am moving for my career. Ah, the adventures of the young and single. Someone shoot me. It's really not all that fun. Haha. 

Things Are Moving Along!

The packing is coming along ....

And that's pretty much how everything is looking right now - like chaos.

My parents will be coming into town next week and then we'll be driving up and down the East Coast. We'll be back in the city on the 28th, which means that I'll have 2 days left to do any last minute things before my stuff gets shipped out to Pasadena. Yay!

For the most part, making arrangements to leave here have been so easy. My landlord will not penalize me for breaking my lease, my agent in NY isn't giving me a rough time about leaving, everything has just been so smooth! But of course, there always has to be a yin to the yang of a decision. I will miss all my friends that are still here. Ironically, I started to make new friends just as I was leaving - where were these people two years ago?!?! C'est la vie, no?

These days, I am doing very well. Albeit, my life plans have changed drastically within the past couple of months, but I'm actually quite happy with the turn things have taken. It hurt a lot, but the fact that I am now free to have a few more years of having fun in the dating world is sounding very appealing to me right now.  Bring it on!!!! LA, I'm coming home!!!!

Vacation Highlights!

I like to steal pictures from my friends. Mwahahaha!

Home - for now. 

One of my friends took this bird's-eye view of Queens, the Bronx, & Rikers Island at night.

So I'm back in NYC. I can't say that I'm exactly thrilled, but at least I don't feel like I want to slit my wrists now. Right now the city certainly doesn't look like the picture above. It's raining, no thanks to the stupid hurricanes.

I think as a rule, when I take vacations I should plan on being gone for 2 - 3 weeks because this is the first vacation I've taken in a while where I've come back feeling rested and relaxed. Highlights were definitely times spent with childhood friends. It seems that everyone has stayed the same (which thrills me), it's their circumstances that have changed - which is the way life goes, I guess. One of the best times I had was with one of my girl friends, Margaret (photo on right). She was having some portraits taken a while ago and decided

 to have fun with them. I think it's hilarious, as I'm sure she does too! Little do many know, that all us Chinese American gals look like this under our clothes. Seriously! Every night at midnight, "Poof!", we transform. All make-up and costume is done without lifting a finger. It gets a little awkward sometimes, especially when we're out in public and then all of a sudden "Poof!". It's just really inconvenient to have to re-dress to today's modern period and avoid people's stares. So yes, I look like this inside, too - except my costume is blue and I'm holding a lucky red envelope. Yesh, we're all exotic on the inside! ;0P (I love you, Mag!) But moving on to our bonding experience ...

The Korean bath house was not exactly the most conventional spa experience we've had. We walked in to have a relaxing morning and the woman behind the desk asked us, "You been to Korean bath house before?" When we said, "No." she then said, "Ohhh!!! Culture shock! Follow me!" Er, okie, um... what did she mean by culture shock?!? By the way, when a middled-aged Asian woman goes "Ohhh! Culture shock!" with a smirk on her face, you know you're in trouble. Before we knew it, we were hustled into the locker room and were told that clothes were not allowed. Dress code: NAKED. Holy crap! Wait! What?!?! Um ... okay ... Now, I'm alright with being naked with other women, but they're usually women I don't know. I've never been naked in front of any of my friends ... AWKWARD!!!!! But hey, you only live once right? So we stripped down and entered the bathing area. If anyone has ever been to a Japanese bath house, a Korean bath house isn't much different. There were two jacuzzis, one with hot water and one with cold, a steam room, a sauna, a mud and tea sauna, and a whole lot of naked middle-aged Korean women. We tried everything - although I had to stay out of the cold water jacuzzi because the scented water was making me dizzy, which led Mag to exclaim, "My God! We're being drugged!" After about half an hour, we were basically ambushed by two masseuses who were two middle-aged Korean ladies dressed in black bras and what looked like black granny-panties with girdles attached. Body scrub and deep tissue massage then ensued. It was odd ... I've never had my boobs scrubbed before. It was truly a bizarre sight: Naked girl on table being massaged and scrubbed by lady in bra and girdle. At least Margaret wasn't on the massage table next to me or else neither one of us would've gotten through the whole ordeal without laughing. I suppose we've crossed a certain level of intimacy and now there is no going back. Hahahaha! 

Highlight #2: The Beach!

Manhattan Beach

I loooooovvvve this beach! Well, I love other beaches in CA too, but out of all my favorites, this one is the closest to my house. I think this is what I miss most about home - the smell, the sound, the sun, and the breeze. There's nothing like it!

The Rude Boy, a.k.a. Rudy lookin' at the horizon.

The second stolen picture.

The same friend that took the picture of NYC earlier, took this while traveling north on the I-5.

Tranquility and open air - no one can convince me that NY is better!

When ever I'd be on the road like this as a kid, usually traveling to or from a vacation, I always used to pretend that I was on a trucking adventure. Hahaha! I will also miss the feeling of open air. Everything is so close together in NYC that it's really claustrophobic, which stresses me out because I feel trapped. *sigh* Ah well, hopefully I'll get a lot of work this year so that I can move back next year. For now, I can look forward to January, because I will be out there for all of that month.

Rudy's Visit!

Ahhh ... the Brooklyn Bridge ...

I believe that my favorite place out of all places in New York City is the Brooklyn Bridge. Perhaps it's because it's around water which reminds me of California, or perhaps it's because it allows me look at Manhattan from afar - where the city lights give the aura that dreams can come true on that island ... It's probably both. But it's the one place in this city where I truly feel uplifted and for a few minutes, happy to be where I am. Plus, Grimaldi's is just on the other side of the bridge so the whole area is bubbling with positivity! Whether or not you agree that Grimaldi's has the best pizza in NYC, you can't deny that it's pretty damn good! Just ask Rudy. I took him there!

Ah yes, Mr. Rudy Martinez. Two thirds (because we're missing Roz) of the South Pasadena High School "Drama Shorties" were together in New York City for a week. Hooray for being 5' 1" or under! It's odd how our high school counselors said that our high school friends would be some of the best friends we'd ever have. At the time I thought it was a little premature for anyone to say that, but for now, it's looking to be true.

Rudy came out here for only one reason: Vacation! He left last Sunday afternoon. I have to say that I'm a little jealous. I wish I could come out to NYC for a vacation. Manhattan is a wonderful playground, but not so great of a place to live in. But I keep telling myself that I've only got two more months to go! (Eeps! That's really soon!) It's somewhat of a tradition of mine, to take my visitors for a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to Grimaldi's on the last night of their visit. On this this night, there was a happy surprise! 

Article: Olafur Eliasson's "New York City Waterfalls"

And I managed to find the locations of all four waterfalls!

Manhattan

Governor's Island

Brooklyn

Brooklyn Tower at the Brooklyn Bridge

For those of you who read the article before looking at my pictures, you may have noticed that this last photograph is from the newspaper article. Okay, okay, I admit it!!! I couldn't find the last one. I had to go home and read the article to find out where it was. But hey, cut me some slack! No wonder I couldn't find the last one because it was directly underneath and literally on the bridge we were walking on!!! But finding 3 out of 4 ain't too shabby, if I might say so myself.

In fact, it seemed that the entire bridge was being decorated by art exhibits:

This was hung onto the belly of the bridge. In my excitement, I forgot to see if there was anything explaining what was going on here. So I have no idea what this is.

One of the inside jokes that Rudy and I have is that we have romantic chemistry every where, except in reality. I chalk it up to the fact that we're approximately the same size. We have more of a brother-sister relationship. So yes, when we had to play a romantic couple in our high school production of Once Upon a Mattress (he played "Dauntless", I was "Winifred"), it felt a little incestuous. Indeed, we put up with the "you guys are so cute together" comments with good humor, but the fact that so many years have passed and we still can't seem to take a picture without us looking like a couple is a little annoying! 

To me, this looks like we're honeymooners or something. *sigh* 

I'm not too pleased with my photo shopping skills. There isn't enough light at this location for a good picture. However, it's one of the best places to get a good view of the NYC skyline. Oh well. I guess what's more important is the memory that this photos represents rather than the actual quality of the picture. While I may not love New York City, I will definitely look back fondly on the memories I have.