Cooking..win?

Well, my mom stayed true to her word and we decided to bake somethin' today. As usual, we found ourselves lacking in several of those baking type ingredients, because we're not exactly a baking type of family. What self-respecting hardcore Asian family makes cookies and brownies? Pfft, dumplings and fried rice all the way! We managed to scrounge up EXACTLY as much butter was called for in the recipe (which turns out, was leftover from the last time we attempted baking), found out we needed much more flour and sugar (to which my dad replied "Why so much sugar? Tai tian le!- too sweet!"), as well as vanilla extract. We also found out we had managed to lose all our measuring cups except for the 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/2 tbsp, and 1/8 (YES, ONE EIGTH, FOR GOD SAKES) teaspoon. So we tromped off to Safeway to buy the necessities.

And at Safeway, I managed to have one of those "is that person who i think it is" encounters, as well as a "hey its that persons should i say hi only i don't really knowt hem so it'd be awkward,better avoid them only oh no why are they standing there so long now I have to walk past them and not look". *sigh. I guess Safeway is the place to be nowadays, eh? Where all the COOL KIDS ha- alright I'll stop.

Anyways so we hauled back all our crap and we sort of just started..baking? Or more like. It was me baking. I guess it was pretty fun. I never understand people who love to cook, but there is something to be said to make something that tastes delicious using your own two hands and hard work. My brother basically hovered around being generally unhelpful and basically only wanting to eat the brownies. :D Pretty satisfactory results, if I do say so myself.

On a totally unrelated note, I saw this really funny thing on TV today. I'mma keep names and details out of this, but what a fail. I realize its just a local TV station and that's the best they can really do...But seriously. My hand were itching to do awkwardturtles through the whole thing, esp. during the second show where the host kept walking around like a creeper behind everyone, and one girl was trying so hard not to laugh. I can understand though. I was doing the same thing. Faillllll.
Edit: I realize that sentence was pretty ambiguous. I was trying not to laugh, NOT being a creeper behind people. *sigh. Sad how I have to clarify that, really.
-Lisa

Happy B-day, G-dragon!

I almost feel like there's too many hyphens in that title. But, anyways, yeah, a very happy B-day to G-dragon. If you happen to be reading this and you don't have the slightest idea who he is, he's a member of a Korean boy-band called Big Bang. I watched the MV for his new song Heartbreaker, and it's pretty good. Not sure I'm digging the platinum blond hair, but hey, its effing G-dragon, he can do whatever the heck he wants to his hair and still be awesome. A full album preview can be found here.

Haha yeah, I do listen to K-pop recently. Maybe more of my asian-ness is coming out. Idk the funky thing is, I have TONS AND TONS of K-pop, more so than those who would say that they're just testing the waters, but not enough to be considered a true listener I guess? My music taste is wide and varied at the very least, and very eclectic. I have music from Korean boy-bands like DBSK and 2PM, and at the same time from those oh-so popular pop-punk bands like Paramore, All Time Low, The Academy Is... I have songs from mainstream pop artists like Lady Gaga. I have a small sampling of alternative rock, like Anberlin and The Killers. I even, I admit, have a few songs by the Jonas Brothers. I have bands known by many, and bands known by few, and the funny thing is I don't have much of a preference for any particular genre or music style.

me: im a musicslut i think

i just made that word up

Eunice: HAHAHAHA

me: i say that because i just do all kinds of genres

Eunice: thats a crazy word

BWEAAHHA

me: and all kinds of music styles

Eunice: i was going to ask you

me: but no strings attached

Eunice: how that worked out

hahahahaha

me: wow. that actually

made sense

sort of

wow.

And even I was suprise at how well that word seemed to describe me. Because really, my relationship with music is very relaxed, a relationship with all the benefits but "no strings attached" as I so eloquently said. I'm not an indie-only snob, or a crazy boy-band fangirl (this could be argued). I just like music for what it is. I think music can be a very powerful way to convey a message or an emotion, or at the same time can just be made to simply to get your blood pumping and you moving. But to me, all music has it's merits and is worth discovering, from soulful R&B, to power ballads of emo angst, to the head-banging, riotous punk music, and even sugary-sweet bubblegum pop. I can find examples from each of these genres that I fully enjoy and have 10+ songs of. Admittedly, my taste does change from time to time, and I find myself only listening to certain genres of newly downloaded songs at a time that I obsessively tracked down via iTunes/Google/Youtube. But hey, half the fun is in changing it up and discovering new things eh? God, I really am a slut. xP

A sampling of my Recently Added Playlist:
Dear Vienna by Owl City (I'm sort of allergic to cuteness, and I still like this band)
Drifting Apart by Nell (REALLY nice indie-rock (says Wiki anyways) band worth checking out, and if you don't speak Korean [like me], eng translations also worth checking out- lyrics are amazinggg)
Alone En La Vida by L'arc-en-ciel
Hot Mess by Cobra Starship
Energetic by BoA (not bad for her debut in the US!)
Inevitable by Anberlin (song introduced to me by Sharon XD)
Leader by Phantom Planet
Sky by Joshua Radin ft. Ingrid Michaelson
Fanatic by Epik High (Check out their originals too! You can't go wrong with Epik High)
Heaven by FT Island
What I've Done by Until June
Romeo N Juliet by Clazziquai
Returns by MC the MAX
So yup, there you go. A little insight into the randomness of my music library.

Angel Pix

So today I went to a CTY reunion at Great Mall Milpitas. I think reunion-awkwardness is something we all have to face, and it really does kind of suck. Despite how well we got along at camp a few weeks ago, its a bit weird to meet up again under different circumstances at a different place. I definitely got a bit of that "first-week-of-camp-standing-in-a-circle-awkwardly" vibe towards the beginning. At one point some of us even stood at the fountain and threw in a coin and wished, "I wish things would get less awkward." *fail. But I still remembered why I liked all of these people, and why it was fun being around them. And eventually things got better, and we had a good time, considering we hadn't talked to each other in a while.

There wasn't much shopping going on for the first few hours. IDK, in my opinion, its just pretty dang awkward to go shopping in large groups of people. First off, there's not many stores appropriate for both boys and girls.and even so. T___T. Maybe it's just me, but I find it SUPERR AWKWARD when there are people waiting for me to finish shopping. Mostly because I take forever, rifling through the clothes racks, and I end up picking five thousand bajillion items to try on. And then it takes me a while to meticulously try each item on, sometimes in different combinations. And then I have to decide whether to swap colors/sizes, or whether it looks good, or if its worth the money. And half the time as I'm walking over to the register, I change my mind and dash back to grab some more stuff. SO BASICALLY. Shopping + Me= huge hassle, so I feel terrible forcing other people to be added to this equation. *sigh. It made it even worse that none of the guys seemed to want to head to any of their own stores and they always followed us without ever complaining. *guilt

I think those asian photobooths were pretty much the reunion's saving grace. Not only did we bond in our total azn-photobooth noobness, but it was pretty funny to try and organize each shot with each other. LOL, those super fob girls who worked there must have looked us up and down and were like "wtf?". Especially cuz we all first wandered back into a booth for about 10 minutes, before re-emerging sheepishly after realizing we had to get coins. :-/. We definitely felt a little overwhelmed walking into that little maze of booths, with J-pop playing full-blast all around us. We all laughed at the little sign written on the flap of the booth: There is a unique machine, in which dreams come true, in which friends get together, in which stickers make us happy, let's join in hime gumi.

...Nice. How could you say no to that? After finally deciding on a booth with monkey bars (disaster in the making?), we all settle and cram in. The booth seemed all futuristic with glowing white walls, and a green screen for a background. At first I laughed at the sign above the touchscreen monitor that said "Please do not bang head here". But thats pretty much what I wanted to do after the picture taking started. T__T After nervously prodding at the touch screen, not fully understanding what was going on, we try and ready ourselves for the shot.. only to get a fail-shot of us all laughing our asses off. "OKAY, you guys next one..next one we do blowfish, okay ready?" ..But of course not everyone got the memo. We all found it highly amusing that our friend's green shirt melded into the green screen background and changed per photo. :D After a few sequences of photos where nothing we planned quite worked out, we rapidly chose a few photos, and under pressure of the timer, chose the wrong one. ..Oh well.

The decorating booth was if possible, even more confusing and stressful. With countless options, all in Japanese, consisting of a series of hearts, sparkles, bubbles and text, we were all unsure of how to properly execute it.

"Um. I don't know what to do"
*nervously places sparkles in corner
"That looks bad."
*long pause
"..You guys, I really don't know what to do".
.....
"Screw it, I'm done."

We had fun putting smiley faces in place of each others' faces, placing strategically placed sparkles in everyone's teeth, and accidentally placed sparkles in *cough questionable areas, while writing out CTY-esque phrases across the bottom. After a while, I do think we sort of got the hang of it, although our decorated pictures were probably significantly tackier than all the other ones hung up. ^___^

I think all of us can safely say that our first azn-photobooth experience was a confusing, mind boggling, stressful blur of green-screens, J-pop, sparkles and screaming at the touch screen for cutting you off before you selected the right option. But I can't say we didn't have loads, and loads and LOADS OF fun. Maybe I'll post some if I get the chance. As an azn-photobooth virgin, I think we can all look back fondly on our first time. :)

And our second.
And third.

..Yes, we went three times.

Edit: Pics posted now! Only. As said before. No one is reading this :(


-L. Wu