LOL

Some lady starts waving frantically at my mom while were at a stoplight. Panicked, my mom rolls down the window and the lady went all through the kerfuffle to say "WE VE GOT THE SAME CAR"

Haaay haaay from the sunshine state. I love it. Love its beaty, love the weather, love the people. I even love the rain. Florida's amazing because its not indecisive. Its hot alllll day. If the sun shines youre catchin rays every second. And if it rains, it pours. I'm dreading what i have to face back home.

reminder of the day #2

Things don't always turn out the way you want them to.
But that doesn't mean that they'll turn out worse than you wanted.

have patience, keep calm, and live freely. listen, and learn. seek harmony in everything, one day at a time.

reminder of the day #1

grabbed some timmy hos on saturday on the way up to whistler. so all was well and good, ordered a sesame bagel with strawberry cream cheese and in a generally good mood. i went off to the side to wait for my bagel out of courtesy for the people behind me wanting to order in line, and then this obnoxious business guy finishes his order and stands beside me. some food pops up ON THE COUNTER and the guy snatches it and heads out the door.

the cashier lady looks at me and goes "you didn't get yours yet?"
i say no
she says "i guess that guy mustve taken it.... i'll make you another one". what a sweet lady.

two minutes later the guy comes marching in. "YOU GUYS GAVE ME THE WRONG THING!" and snatches the next food item that comes up. luckily the lady spotted him and knew it was mine so she quickly told him.
they forgot the strawberry cream cheese and used plain instead, but the lady already took so much shit from the obnoxious guy that i spared her my moaning and groaning about what turned out to be a pretty decent bagel.

people in this society are too full of pride to take the blame anymore. i mean, how hard would it have been for the guy to return in, a little sheepish, and say, "sorry i was in such a hurry i must have taken the wrong thing by accident". it wouldn't have been a big deal, and everyone would have been understanding.
instead, he decided to turn it all around and blame the poor 8 dollar an hour worker for his impatience and stupidity.


with maturity comes great responsibility. honor it............ for the sake of this earth. please.

taking responsibility is kinda like getting a pimple. you can choose to blame it on your diet, your facewash, the fight you had with your boyfriend, let it ruin your day and limit your confidence, and then try to cover it up with a pound of makeup and end up making it look worse than it did in the first place.
or you can acknowledge it, give it a little tender loving care, invest in some good concealer (clinique wins here hands down. just sayin) and respect yourself and others in the process- its your choice.

anyways that was my reminder of the day - take responsibility. cus i know i'd respect someone more for owning up then covering up anyday.

alive

been thinking about it since march 2009.......... and finally got around to doing something i've been meaning to do since then................BUNGEE JUMPING!!!!!

my new mantra in life is that you regret more the things you didn't do than the things you did do. and today proved that. as i jumped off the platform i felt alive. and my summer was made right there.

its a feeling like none other. best $130 ever spent. and best of all, now i'm officially a lifetime member so i can now jump anytime i want for 80 bucks.

and if you'd ask me to describe it in 2 words, i'd only be able to say.........
HELL YEAH

how sweet it is

cant wait to leave this city. i need a break.

god bless the rain

we didn't recieve one drop of rain for the entire month of july, and on the day my cousin leaves, i think the rain is a welcomed change.

for me, rain has never been about doom and gloom. it has been about refreshment, starting anew, and life. if you know me, you know i love water - being in and around it is literally my life - so nothing puts me in a better mood than when its literally pouring from the sky.

i've watched rain wash away sidewalk chalk masterpieces, creating blank canvases for the world's artists. i've seen the liquid sunshine delay and cancell various sports games and events - but more than often enough the break was needed and welcomed. i've seen rain ruin hairstyles, proms, and weddings - giving everything a natural look.

nature was designed to welcome and thrive the rain. natives danced and sang about the rain, and it was thought of as a gift in countries where there was a drought most of the year.

i think we should welcome the rain in the same way. rain is real. rain is powerful. rain is strong. rain washes away the dust, dirt, and grime, so we can see the earth in all it's glory.

my parents were married on a rainy day. after 25+ happy years together, some would say they suffered for a day of rain for a lifetime of 'sunshine'. i disagree. i think they've lasted so long because their relationship is real. and beautiful. even in the rain.

Westcoast represent

Over the last week or so i've been more productive than i have all summer. Not that lazing around is bad---- i reward myself for a successful year with a whole summer of lollygagging-- but i must say its a refreshing change of pace.

My favourite cousin is visiting right now so i'm using her as an excuse to indulge in all my vancouver faves. I toured my own city in chinatown,burnaby, grouse, and whistler. Made me realize 2 things:
1. Love my city too death.
2. I know it too well.

Im happy im soon getting a break from this place for a while. Though i will miss the qoola (if you havent tasted it yet run dont walk to metrotown this second and buy it. You wont regret it.

all you brothers n sisters & me

i'm not a very sentimental person. maybe i'm a cold, heartless bitch. maybe i just don't get attached to people cus too many have screwed me over. maybe i just don't have the attention span to stay tied to something or someone for too long. or maybe its cus i look for and find family in every aspect of my life, so i never really feel like i'm missing anything cus its all there.

i don't believe in having only one family. i mean, its true that i can only drive an unlimited number of people in my biological one, but that doesn't mean it's the only family i have.

everywhere i turn, i got family. cus when you think about it, it's really something you need - what am i supposed to do when my biological family isn't home?
i turn to my school family. or my swimming family. or my pc family. or my preschool buddies family (hard to believe we're entering our senior year/graduated already!!!) or my elementary school family. or my extended family. or my best friends'families (LOL). and the list goes on.

each family has its strengths, and weaknesses of course, but coming together they fit the mold perfectly. we look out for each other and know whats best for each other, and though we hate each other sometimes we know, deep down, we secretly still love them.

if i'm ever in a situation where i'm driving a limited number of passengers cus of my new liscense, and the p.o. busts me for breaking the '1 passenger + family' rule...... i think i'll know what i have to say......
"officer........ these people are my family. our birth certificates might not match, we might be the same race or it might be impossible for us to have been born in the same immediate family because of our age, but we ARE family. "

and hopefully the officer will understand. if he doesn't agree that the concept of family means more than those bound to us by blood or marriage, i feel sorry for him.

cus he's missing out.

Don't depend on others because they won't always be there for you as much as you wish for them to be.

Be independent and strong. Most importantly, be yourself.

sweet escape

since i was young, i've always been fascinated with airports. when i was little it was all about going to grandma's/disneyland/vacation somewhere, which brought lots of excitement to my days. as i grew older, it became all about people watching and the fact the yvr/lax/yyz/lga/dtw/sea etc are pretty much gateways to the world.

it STILL captivates me every time i go to the airport. i admit i look at where all the planes are going as i'm trying to find my gate and i imagine where all the people could possibly be going. i'd walk by planes headed to montego bay and see school groups in matching T's from detroit heading on the vacation of a life time or on the plane going to hawaii wondering who was lucky enough to be heading home.

i personally can't wait to get out of the smalltown bubble i live in and explore the world. but for now......... people watching at the airport is gonna have to be a start.

good news, bad news

the good news:
new phone!!!!! welll iphone.... so new ipod and celluar phone and wireless device!!!!
and they took so long they gave us $100 to spend towards cases!! wooohooo

the bad news:
dropped my phone on concrete 3 hours before i buy my free case. made me yell a word that starts with a f and ends with uck (firetruck!!!!)

the good news:
most of the damage was done on the plastic i kept on my phone until i get a case.

the bad news:
pretty little white dent in the top left corner that i colored with sharpie. classy.

wise words of andy warhol

last night

for some reason, if i sleep after swim practice i ALWAYS remember my dreams. anyways, my adventures last night:

i was in this vintage store (pretty sure it was Front) on main street and bought this turquoise bike for REALLY cheap.

I started riding it around in New York city and ended up riding it into this HUGE room. It was pretty much Grand Central Station, except for way more windows, nothing in the middle/on the floor, and no ticket booths or anything that were telling when the trains were coming etc. And oh my, the PEOPLE. there were SO MANY people and i'm pretty sure i knew all of them.

so i'm biking down a random road, and all of a sudden it gets really steep. it flashes back to grand central room again and i'm biking down, dodging people, but the floor is really steep as well. i fall off my bike, walk down this weird hallway, and end up in this mall.
(weird part is i've NEVER been to a mall like this in my life, but i've dreamt about going there numerous times. the parking lot is on the second level, it's long and skinny, and there's a victoria's secret store and a kohl's on the most east tip of it. it's kinda like ala moana mall in HI if you've ever been there, but not quite....... weird tho cus i started dreaming about this place before i visited that mall.

ANYWAY....... so i go to the mall and smell perfumes in this store, then i continue down these hallways and go on this ride. it starts off as a subway, but turns into a zipper-like ride. i rode it with my friend sylvia and my friend carla and her sister(? even though she doesn't have a sister) were sitting in front of us.

As soon as the ride stops, all hell breaks loose. i run to the top of the noticeably less steep than before Grand central room and see many people i knew mysteriously died. i chase this woman who i refer to in my dream as my mom/aunt or something back to the subway ride, but i get trapped inside and have trouble getting out.

So THEN i get back to the grand central room AGAIN and all these soldiers with machine guns come barelling in and i get shot to death.

its weird because when i'm dying i can feel the pain but all i can really feel is pins and needles and my body parts falling asleep. SO then i float up to 'heaven' which ends up being the upper half of the room - and see all these floating people too. and we're literally just like, hovering in the air. i remember being slightly transparent haha!

weirdly my dreams usually end with my death. this one kept going.

i remember seeing lots of people in heaven but most distinctly my cousin stefanie who in the dream died in a car crash when she was 18 (tho she's still alive and well at 21 now).
all the people in heaven told me i had to say the final goodbye to my human body by putting it away - so i had to pick it up and put it in this coffin/idk?! that was sparkly and light purple and was pretty much just a giant pencil case.

SO then, i meet this random blond guy and we start dancing for some reason? and then he started dancing with this other girl as well who was really nice and i was really jealous. he then said we could share him and for some reason i was okay with that. HAHAHA

SO then in my dream world there is this element thing where people become ghosts or whatever so they can appear to people still living. there are still alive humans in the grand central room, and they cannot see us until our bodies materialize into the human world. so i was talking to my auntie kristie and one of the moms of someone on my swim team and we were able to have a full conversation but i asked them what of me they could see and they said only my neck. (?)

SO THEN melissa l. was still alive so me and my friends in ghost form wanted to send her a sign or something? and we started talking to her and she wanted to take a picture of us but we couldn't.
julian (who was dead) managed to capture a photo of me and melissa l. but i did not show up in said picture.

and then my mom called and woke me up.

sorry for unloading this on here, it's just that i do not remember the last time i was able to recall a dream i had so vividly.....and to be honest i was wildly entertained.

something no one told me

sunshine

Today was one of those days. no, not one of THOSE days. a good day. one of those days that only happen once every few months - possibly with the full moon? the changing of the tides? the changing of justin bieber's voice? who knows!! what matters is that it was one of those fantastic-fall-asleep-smiling days.
"and it was good"

the kinda day that makes you say........ damn, i'm happy to be alive.
the one where you wake up with your alarm so you don't feel any fatigue, ace your morning exercise routine, spend the day with a friend and get to the pool for a solid swim practice.
the one where you decide to buy ice cream to celebrate the good day, and you see that its half the price you usually pay.

one of those days that are just roll-in-the-grass-do-a-happy-dance-in-the-sunshine fabulous.

what keeps me going on the days where when i feel the opposite of rolling the the grass happy dancing in the sunshine fabulous are days like today - the fact that the promise of a better tomorrow is looming in the distance creates enough positive energy to grab the corners of my lips and turn that frown upside down.

someone told me

even tho its in french, carla bruni's voice is so smooth. i fricken am addicted to this song and i don't fully understand it.



recently experienced a rediscovery of the killers. masterminds of the time man, for reals.

LOL

the office will never be the same :*(

after the fall

in social studies this year we learned aboiut the laissez-faire approach - in the english language known as 'let be'. tho it refers to the government, i think to a certain degree it can also be applied to friendships. not in the way where neglect is present, but in the way we treat our friends....... esp our girls.

u love your friends, right? you want the best for them, right? so how the hell can you just stand there and watch as your friend's heart gets ready to be ripped to pieces as you see that guy take it out of her chest cavity and run it thru a paper shredder (metaphorically) in front of your own eyes?!?!!!!

but then its a point where u gotta let them experience your tough love. whether you like it or not, u gotta face the facts that you're not always gonna be there to prevent these horrible things - getting led on, cheated on, used, etc- from happening to your girls (or boys for that matter). you know how they say 'give a man to fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime'? same applies.

theres a difference between feeding ur friend and teaching ur friend. the best friends may be the ones that let life happen to their girls and boys, but remember..... the best friends are also the ones who are waiting in the wings with the ben and jerrys, prepared to stay up all night to comfort them in their time of need AFTER the lesson is learned.

it's like they're on a cliff in the middle of the ocean. they're gonna fall off eventually..... even if you try to prevent it, as much as you love them..... it's gonna happen. maybe when you sleep. maybe when you sneeze. you've just gotta face the facts that it's gonna happen.
so the question is........ are you gonna be there for them while they're recovering from that inevitable fall, or are you gonna be to busy kicking yourself for preventing them from learning the inevitable lesson that you fail to realize that AFTER the fall is when they need u the most?

concrete jungle where dreams are made oh

miss this city. last summer, i fell in love....... with a city that never sleeps. every morning i wake up and miss the sounds, the busy-ness, the sophistication. i miss the fact that in that city you can walk down the street and see a celebrity performing in concert for the today show (actually happened). i miss times square. i miss the broadway shows....... they're mind-blowing. i miss the lights. i miss the pretzel stands on every corner. i miss the amazing food.... i fell in love with turkish food on that trip and haven't been able to find any since. i had the best avocado sandwich in the world in this cafe in harlem that served $1 mimosas at lunchtime... what's not to like??!!

the day i left, i promised myself i'd be back many times. and trust me, i will be back..... and eventually to stay.