Pages: food for thought
1. A friend who I’m a bridesmaid for talked to me yesterday and insisted that I don’t need to give a wedding gift, that my design service was a tremendous gift in itself. It’s funny how a bold act of appreciation can change my mind-set entirely. Suddenly, I’m much more positive when I feel that I’m not being taken for granted. Appreciation goes a long way.
2. This year makes me understand why people pray. It is regardless of which religion you practice; prayer allows you to reconcile with the fact that some things are just out of your hands. That no matter what you do, some things are just left up to hope.
3. My grandma tripped in the garden and fractured her left wrist. Her arm is now in a cast and she can’t bathe properly for four weeks; yet, she still putters around trying to do whatever she can with one hand. My mom posted the incident on facebook and the whole world called to see if she was ok. A distant relative who lives nearby came to drop off fruits and snacks from Trader Joes. With one man down, we’ve all increased our responsibilities around the house and pitched in to take care of grandma when we can.
Sometimes, unfortunate events can bring good things. Such as orange infused cranberries.
4. One of my coworkers passed away from cancer last week. I have nothing new to reflect about death, but from time to time, I still think about her. She dressed like any other Asian mom I know, always had something quirky to say if I passed her in the hallway or coffee room, and was always loud on the phone. I had lunch with her and a group of coworkers once. We went to a Taiwanese cafe and ordered a bunch of dishes to share family-style. I was still relatively new back then and remember they were gossiping about a certain “you-know-who.” She had a distinct way of ranting. Her face would be creased with a frown; her words were lined with wit. Besides these instances, I rarely conversed with her. The last time I saw her, she looked as old as my grandmother, had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and was surrounded by coworkers welcoming her visit.
Now she is gone, and my life is actually no different besides the fact that I know she won’t be coming back to sit in her cubicle and talk loudly into the phone. She’s one of those characters that you assume would always be in the background, her presence taken for granted.
I realize I have a long way to go to live up to my family name.
My youngest aunt, being the wife of a government official, could single-handedly prepare 20+ dishes to feed a dinner party. My other aunt cooked 12 dishes on her own over the course of two days for herself and my uncle during Chinese New Year. I am technically only in charge of two dishes for my friend’s bridal shower tomorrow and I’m already spazzing out.
It will all be ok.
1. I really need to update my portfolio and yet I don’t think I’ll have time until September. Stupid weddings.
2. *Big heavy sigh.* I’m at the stage in life where I suddenly care about all the things I never thought I’d care about: my career path and the $ next to my name. Both are superficial factors. They’re not supposed to define a person; and for the most part of my life, I’ve never let titles and figures define me. Yet, now, it feels as if these two are my oars and whether I sink or float depends on them. Adulthood. Ugh.
3. My mom worked three student jobs in college, was extremely frugal with her life, yet never hesitated to give to other people. 30+ years later, not much has changed except that she now only works one job at a reputable company with very competitive pay. Life’s just one giant process.
4. I am currently holding onto bare threads of resistance from purchasing OPI’s Is It Payday Yet? nail polish from Sephora. The name is a total coincidence.
I almost had a nervous breakdown yesterday, which was really stupid considering I was just fretting about first world problems.
But fortunately, I’m blessed with the people around me. I ranted to my mom, and rather than reprimand me for my childish attitudes, she consoled me with her timeless advice, “just do it.” (I’m pretty sure Nike got it from her.) She even offered to take one errand off my hands so I can get to bed in time for a full 8 hours rest. (How do people live without moms? Bless moms.) Then, I ranted to my boyfriend, and rather than blowing off my troubles, he shrewdly reminded me that “things are temporary,” life isn’t going to be like this forever, you’ll get through it. Bless understanding boyfriends who say the right thing. Not things we want to hear, but things we need to hear. (And said in a genuine, compassionate manner that don’t make us turn into raving angry bitches, hence creating bigger rifts in communication.) Plus, he will be making crepe paper flowers with me. What kind of boyfriend is talented/open-minded enough to sit down with his girlfriend on a Friday night to make crepe paper flowers?
Blessed.
1. Whenever I have a great idea, I should do it immediately before it grows stale in my mind. I look around and there are many cool, quirky, interesting, and unique things. They all started with an idea. The only difference is that somebody acted on it.
2. I really am spoiled beyond belief. For the longest time, I stopped washing the dishes because our kitchen is still being remodeled. My mom and grandma set up a washing system in the backyard but I would never be at home when there’s enough light in the day to wash. I finally took a stab at it this past weekend since it’s Mother’s Day and all. I felt like a refugee bent over a tub of soapy water, evening mosquitoes brushing against my calf. Yet, it dawned on me that this was pretty much how life was 60 years ago. It is also how life is in many underdeveloped societies today. What is a novelty to me, is a fact of life to someone else.
3. Why buy something new when you can craigslist it? Reuse, reduce, recycle.
4. Except for old carpets, mattresses, couches, and anything hygienically questionable.
5. Also except for items you won’t find on craigslist for another 10 years and cannot be replaced by similar type items.
6. Awww. 4 and 5 are both > than 3. =( Poor three.
1. Busy. So busy that I haven’t even seen The Avengers yet like I had promised to my comic-geek boyfriend. His love must be real if he’s willing to understand.
2. I have this thing where I tend to be unfaithful to my yearly themes. I’ve ditched “embrace” for “process” in 2010, now I want to ditch “simplicity” for “relax.” Yes, I need to relax. Relaxation is a form of simplicity, but it hits the note for 2012: I need to accept a lot of things and stop fretting. Life will work itself out.
3. Being social is like having a job. You can’t be a flake; you have to be reliable. It’s not about you, it’s about the team [of friends]. If you say no too often, you’ll probably get fired/not have a social life anymore.
4. I went to my good friend’s graduation commencement; while I’m extremely proud of her and admire her fellow peers, it reminded me of my own mediocrity. I am average, where do I go next?
5. I painted my room a color I never thought I would pick. I always thought I would choose a feisty red, golden yellow, or some other bold color, but this shade turned out better than I thought. Life’s surprising in small ways.
6. I would like another night of 15 hour sleep. Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen for another three months.
1. It just occurred to me that Harry Potter is the only blockbuster youth fiction series that does not contain a stupid love triangle between the main characters. JK Rowling ftw! Harry has more important things to think about.
2. I did it! I finally went skydiving! The funny thing is, I don’t even remember why I wanted to go skydiving to begin with. It was probably due to seeing pictures floating around on facebook and thinking it would make a cool milestone marker. The only problem was I wasn’t eager enough to go alone. Many friends courteously patted me on the back and apologized, I love you, but not that much. Or they just laughed in my face. But it’s ok, life worked itself out.
Skydiving became a symbolic experience. All I could tell my friends afterwards was that it felt “surreal.” Throughout the training session, the waiver, the plane ride, and the jump, I never actually thought about what I was doing. My mouth may have uttered, “We’re jumping out of a plane!” But my brain didn’t consciously recognize that fact. When I read the waiver, I promptly initialed the lines and marked the date. When it came time to gear up, I stepped into the harnesses without question. When my tandem instructor told me to shuffle forward, I swung my leg over the bench and waddled with what I could. When it came time to jump, nothing really processed through my mind besides reminding myself to lean my head back, bend my knees, and hearing my instructor count down from three.
During the jump itself, I never actually thought, I’m falling 13,000 feet from the sky! All I could feel was how loud it was — so loud that I couldn’t hear my own voice hollering. How strong the wind was kneading my face — so strong that I wasn’t even sure if I was smiling. (My pictures prove it. My mouth was just stretched wide open in 90% of them.) Or how my lungs patiently reminded me to breathe — it’s easy to forget when there’s so much adrenaline to focus on.
Everything just kind of happened. I had already accepted the fact that I was going to jump out of the plane, the only matter left was to actually do it.
In some ways, that’s how I feel about my current relationship. It all just kind of happened. It doesn’t feel forced or out of place. “I love you’s” didn’t feel too hasty or belated. Meeting parents and friends felt seamless unlike traditional courting customs. My mom lets him borrow her PHP books, his mom shares her glee about the NBA playoffs. We don’t even have an official “date” because we didn’t even have “the talk.” I don’t consciously think, I’m in a relationship! I’m just riding the flow. We’re becoming closer friends, learning through miscommunications, growing from our differences. When it came time to jump, we just did.
3. I read this article (one of the very few sincere and provoking pieces on Thought Catalog) and it reminds me of why I hesitate to post anything too personal about relationships. First, it’s because we’re biased from our own experiences, myself included. (In fact, the couple I have previously scoffed is going through rocky times. Although I can claim that “I’m right,” it’s still something I can’t understand.) Second, I’m very aware that everything is temporary. As much as I have faith to say that he’s my friend I want to spend the rest of my life with, I am also 100% positive that there will be moments where I wish there was a refund option. Third, you know what you know, but you still never know. Life’s capricious like that.
4. Wow, a lot of deep shit came out of an entry where I just really wanted to broadcast tidbit #1. Harry Potter! Harry Potter! *Chants*
Just for fun, I decided to reread my LJ. This entry gave me a chuckle:
“I didn’t sleep until 3:30am yesterday. It was weird. I just had this urge to waste time, so I just decided to sit in front of my computer like a zombie. I feel like I’ve been having terrible mood swings. One minute I’m all together and composed. I’m rational, upbeat, going about my business, writing these sporadic self proclaimed theories in my LJ. And the next moment I’m just like, What the hell am I doing with my life? I’m going to move back home and be a nobody. I’m not going to have any friends. I’m not going to belong. I’m going to lose my autonomy. I’m not going to find a guy. I’ll be one of those single ladies who has wrinkles and gray hair my roommate is always freaked out about becoming. I’m this, I’m that, I’m not this, I’m not that. Blah, blah, blah.”
It’s amusing because two years later, none of what I feared came true. In fact it’s just about the opposite. I have a steady job. I’m not a nobody. Even my coworkers drag me out for lunch; gone are the days of sitting alone in the cafeteria at 3pm. I get along with my family. I’ve found a guy, but not just a guy, a best friend. I’m blessed with a social life (one that’s sometimes hard to keep up with.) I’ve pursued my own goals, such as running a half marathon. (And if time and money weren’t tight this year, I think I’d sign up again.)
Life worked out. What was I so scared about?
That was nice to read considering that my boyfriend lost his job today, and although I think it’s a positive change overall, these situations are still a downer. I started thinking all these absurd thoughts such as we can never eat out, I’m going to have to be even more frugal with my budget if I’m going to be supporting two people in a relationship. And what if he just sits on his bum, play video games and watch Netflix 24-7 like he did when he lost his last job?
Then, I realized that, yes, he is going to play a lot of video games. Yes, it’s going to take him much longer than I did to find a career path. But no, he is not going to do nothing with his life. No, he is not void of passion and interests. No, he is not dumb. It’s going to be ok. And we can still eat out…just maybe one meal a week instead of three.
John Berger
I learned something new today!
A group of my male coworkers disappeared during our lunch break and wouldn’t tell me where they were going. After they left, I asked my coworker sitting next to me and he replied “male bonding.” Oh, well, that’s easy…”Hooters?” He wore an amused smile and replied, “No, they went to a Vietnamese Coffee Shop.”
My naive brain automatically thought, Coffee? What’s so bad about coffee? Then, he promptly pulled up a Google Images search tag for Vietnamese Coffee Shop and voila! Half-naked girls galore! Apparently I’m out of the loop. I always thought it was just Hooters and strip clubs, I didn’t know there was a land in between.
Naturally, I’m very curious about this so I go ahead and start asking all my guy friends, boyfriend and friends about their Vietnamese Coffee Shop experiences. I was going to put it on my list of things to experience (strip club has already been checked off my list) but when I heard the food and drinks suck…eh, never mind.
It’s interesting. According to my (small) census: 1. my friends all say it’s not their scene; 2. the excitement wears off; 3. it’s not like they’d want a girl from there anyway. (Well there’s some hope in humanity…)
I think it’s interesting because these experiences illustrate how much easier it is to rely on what’s bare (no pun intended) and simple. Human relationships? Those are complicated. Feelings? Complex. Glancing at some tits? Not so much.
Sounds depressing, yet it occurred to me that there were exceptions or else my friends wouldn’t have responded the way they did. Humans are wired to be complex; that’s just emotional intelligence. A friend once told me how “the right girl can make a man cry.” (That was very un-PC of me, my apologies. A man can also make a man cry, etc.) So while it may appear that these half-naked chicks hold a lot of power over the average woman, we are actually the ones who are more powerful. Men rely on these temporary facades because they can’t break him, where as among the rest of us, the right person can.
It’s scary. No wonder these fairytale lands exist.
New rule for all future wedding design: 3 Edits Limit (a very generous amount for free labor.)
First two edits: any change in visual style, content and text.
Third edit: text only.
Any other edits: Demand payment no matter how good of a friend he/she is or an Alexander Steakhouse dinner. Payments double with every additional edit.
Notes: If friends don’t like my rules, that’s completely fine. I also look forward to receiving generic invitations with ugly fonts. If strangers don’t like my rules, I could care less. If strangers want my service, there is an additional flat $200 design fee.
Ridiculous, I know. But weddings are pretty ridiculous, so what’s new?
Tolerance wins every time.
I had a dream about not sleeping in my dream. As in I dreamed that I pulled an all-nighter or something like it. I could feel weights on my back, a pounding in my head, and a general woozy and sluggish sensation where I feel like I’m a walking zombie. Then, I dreamed that my coworker gave me these little sample cups of food like they do at Costco and that helped a bit. However, I was just as tired when I woke up.
I think I’m stressed.
I want to be light.
Forget the rants I’ve posted in the past, (actually, don’t forget them, that will make me sad. Haha.) this is my ultimate Hunger Games rant.
I enjoy debates. I enjoy the fact that people have different opinions than me. That is what makes life interesting, it is what makes us terribly complex in nature. I accept that if you love The Hunger Games, my little rants won’t keep you from loving it. I also expect that avid fans will defend it, but what I don’t appreciate is if someone carelessly makes assumptions about my nature.
I was having a harmless little banter about The Hunger Games when my dumb-ass friend made a very insensitive comment: “Well that’s because you are the capital. If you lived in the tenderloin, you’d think differently.” (This might as well be the equivalent of, “That’s because you’ve never experienced true love. If you know true love, you’d jump off a cliff too.” Bull shit.)
Uh, excuse me?
Whether or not I live in the tenderloin district of San Francisco has NOTHING to do with why I think The Hunger Games is a poorly developed book. In fact, the “political struggle” is part of why I think The Hunger Games is a half-assed book to begin with. The political intents makes crass generalizations that the rich are selfish, greedy, and ignorant while the poor are humble and hardworking. Sorry, that may be a winning formula for a crowd pleaser, but reality is NOT SO SIMPLE. Humans are not so easily divided. This is why I say The Hunger Games lacked the depth I was looking for. There was absolutely no character growth. Nothing was realized. There was no epiphany that usually happens with a great character and story. (Lord of the Flies, The Remains of the Day, Life of Pi, The Hundred Secret Senses, Bastard out of Carolina, Walk Two Moons, The Giver and even Harry Potter just to name a few.) The whole puppet show was just based on poorly played stereotypes.
As for not living in the tenderloin? I wanted to stick it to his face that having the chance to work in the Bronx for one summer was one of the greatest experiences of societal clash I have ever encountered. I was warned not to wear any shorts that were above my knees even though it was sweltering hot. I got to see sneakers tied on telephone wires. I got to observe how the racial profile of a subway train changed immediately once it passed Jackson Ave. I also got to observe children playing freely in the street as water sprayed from a broken fire hydrant, or young jaded mothers pushing baby strollers. I was never apart of it, but I could see it. I was still there.
Society favors the wealthy, but there is a reason why that pattern has stayed constant throughout history. Power? Same thing. There are reasons why we still have a wage gap and why it is taking forever for it to grow smaller. The Rich, Poor, and Everyone In Between are present in every culture. The Hunger Games was a very cheap illustration of that.
And for those who keep claiming how America is The Capitol…Please, have you not traveled? Have you looked at Asia? Trust me, their malls blow our Westfields out of the water. Their cuisine is just as refined. Their youth demands high society luxuries too. Every nation holds class differences. Every society faces corruption. But please critique it in a way that is more than: “I’m rich, so I’m just self-conceited and brainless!” “I’m poor, so I know what it means to be noble and strong.”
On the other hand, the character that had the most promise in The Hunger Games barely appeared three times: Cinna. He was by far the most complex and intriguing character. Yet, Suzanne Collins barely did anything with him. How disappointing.
Part of a graphic designer’s job that is commonly overlooked is how we deal with words. Not just visual typography, but words. A single word, a sentence, a paragraph, a story. The written language can hold just as much power as the visual. The tricky thing is, most people don’t actively read (myself included), so we have to be very strategic with words in our design.
Our jobs would be easy if all we needed to do was slap copy provided for us, but most of the time, the copy sucks. For instance, this, my friends, is clumsy, bombastic copy most likely written by overly prideful owners of a business:
“This unique juice is a delightful blend of fresh red and white wine grapes. Grown on prized, matured vines up to 80 years old, each vine produces only a limited quantity of grape clusters that possess deep, fruity and rich complex flavors that no other grape can match.
With the wholesomeness of homemade juice, this nectar is unprocessed and 100% natural with no added water, coloring, flavoring, sugar or preservatives, and pressed only from hand-selected juicy, ripe berries.
All the grapes are sourced from our own certified organic vineyard, located in the scenic Ukiah valley of California. Sitting among lush, natural surroundings, our grape vines are protected by a ring of mountains and located far from roads, industries and pollution. During the fruiting season, our vines bask in the nourishing rays of the uninterrupted sun while contrasting cold night temperatures intensify the taste of each fruit. With each vine hand-cared for, our vineyard is maintained to surpass strict oraganic standards.
Our grapes are free of pesticides, artificial fertilizers and are even spared the chemicals of treated water as their deep roots extract its own water supply from nutrient rich underground aquifers.
This rare treat is best enjoyed chilled or mixed with water for a refreshing drink.”
That was slapped on the back of a bottle. It made me cringe. Somebody please help these grapes, they’re smothered with so much verbiage, I think they’re choking. And that whole thing about contrasting temperatures? I looked it up. It’s a myth depending on the grape. And even if it’s not, please word it in a way so it is not disputable. Something along the lines of, “We hand-cultivate our grapes in ideal temperatures to yield a perfect harvest.”
Yes, I’m being petty. But that’s what drives design. Every detail should serve some purpose. If the text is not going to be read, you’re wasting valuable real estate.
