Videos of the international collaboration mentioned in yesterday’s post.
korean american collaboration from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
TEDxUCLA CultureHub
laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: events, experiences, performance, videos
19
June
2011
0
TEDxUCLA
laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: events, experiences, pictures, ucla
18
June
2011
I attended the very first TEDxUCLA today! I’m really glad I went, since there were some fantastic presentations and the vibe there was just awesome. Here are some pictures to walk you through so you can feel like you were there too. 🙂
Check out their site and their Facebook page if you’re interested and maybe I’ll see you there next year!
A very simple, yet very cool design!
Speaker Rebeca Mendez shares her fascination with a bird that circumvents the earth annually, flying from North Pole to South Pole and back again.
Speaker Leonard Rome shares a fascinating little thing in our bodies - vaults (no, not the bank kind) - with the potential to save lives.
Lunchtime!
They may look like an innocent arrangement of benches and tables...
...but don't be fooled! The aerial view provides a brand new perspective.
And from here it really just looks like a place to eat.
Speaker Jimmy Lizama shows how he'd like the world to be.
Watch out! These presentations can get a little crazy. Speaker Michael Newman prepares to shoot the audience with a Nerf gun.
Yay, for a stretch break, we get to play around with those beach balls from earlier!
In addition to having two musical groups performing simultaneously in Seoul and in front of us in Los Angeles, a DJ in Seoul collaborated with a dancer (Mike Song) in LA for this performance.
I managed to snag my very own TEDxUCLA swag. 🙂
Happy hour
laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: experiences, friends, opinion, work
17
June
2011
Tonight I went out to dinner with a few coworkers and their friends. Initially, it was supposed to be a happy hour sort of thing, but two of the guys got caught up with work, so we didn’t leave until about 6:30. We were also going to celebrate one guy’s birthday and his pending departure to go to business school. It turned out to be a great meal and it made me wish that our company organized some happy hours for coworkers to spend time together after work.
I have a friend who goes to happy hour with her coworkers nearly every week (or at least has the opportunity to) and I think that’d be a nice thing for my office too. I mean, we do have lunches together pretty frequently, but there’s always a time constraint and people can’t really unwind like they could on a Friday after work. Plus, people seem to bond better over alcohol and the whole nighttime scene makes things feel more intimate. I mentioned this to one of the coworkers who was out with us and he thought it was a good idea as well. Perhaps I’ll try to arrange something and start a new office tradition!
The Hope Diamond
laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: observation, pictures
15
June
2011
They had this on display at the Smithsonian. At some point these things are so large it’s just ridiculous.
My, how the years fly
laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: experiences, friends, observation, opinion
14
June
2011
This weekend, a bunch of my friends graduated from UCLA. It’s a reminder of how long it’s been since I first crossed paths with them and I find it almost inconceivable that we’ve finally reached this point. When I first met this group of friends, they were all first years living in my building. I was already a 4th year, with a year and a half left before graduating. It seemed like so long before they would ever graduate themselves, but now the time has come! Has it really been two and a half years since I graduated? While so much has happened, it all seemed to go by really quickly. In a blink of an eye, here I am, well into my life as a working professional.
I still remember the carefree nights we spent chatting into the wee hours, or the stressful nights we spent studying into the wee hours! There were plenty of meals to unite us and random gatherings in the hallway. Ah, the hallways that drew us all together. I really enjoyed the people I encountered just by living where I did, and while we’ve drifted apart since the time we were neighbors, they will always have a fond place in my heart and hopefully we continue to find time to meet up when we can. It’s hard to believe that everyone is moving on to work or grad school (or trying for one or the other). I still feel like I’m 21 and they’re all 18. It seems that I might feel that way forever, no matter how our lives change and mature.
Thinking about those relationships also reminds me of the ones I built while studying abroad in England. One of my best friends from that time has had an opportunity to visit me here and now we’re planning his next visit! Has it really been two years since we’ve seen each other? It definitely flew by before I knew what happened. I guess it was because I managed to get a job a few months after he left and that has kept me pretty busy ever since. I’m already coming up on a year and a half at my company! That one feels like longer, since so much has happened, yet it still feels fast, since I can remember so much of how I felt when I was just starting.
Let’s not even talk about high school anymore. Freshman year was ending a decade ago! Boy does that make me feel old. It’s just baffling how fresh those memories feel, even when so much has happened and a lot of time has gone by. Our perceptions of time were never really very accurate, were they?
Jumping lessons
13
June
2011
Between this and helping him off my lap, I’d like to think I trained George to jump. 😛
jump george from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Rex the Rabbit
laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: animals, experiences, pictures
12
June
2011
Is it just me or do animals get super lazy and fat in the care of humans?
Speed trap
laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: cars, daddy, driving, observation, traffic
11
June
2011
Today on my drive home, I saw a car get pulled over about a mile behind me. It made me think about how often I see cars pulled over at the Magic Mountain exit of the 5 North. From the moment you get over the hump into the Santa Clarita Valley, the 5 becomes a fast ride. It’s hard not to get carried away with all the speeding cars around you and I always have to be extra careful that I don’t drive too fast. I wonder if I passed that very same highway patrol who caught that car I saw in my rearview mirror. I assume that I had, and of course didn’t even notice. Good thing I was driving the speed limit, unlike a lot of my neighbors on the road.
Just as I was thinking about all the cops I’d seen along Magic Mountain Parkway or Tourney road, I turned off the exit to that very spot and lo and behold, there were two cop cars there. This time it was just because of an SUV that had to be towed, but usually it’s because someone got caught along the speed trap the 5 becomes at that point. From Stevenson Ranch all the way up to Castaic, it’s a huge stretch of light traffic (most of the time) and motorists get too reckless.
I remember my dad telling me about another small speed trap area – that part of Magic Mountain Pkwy leading into Valencia. The road is wide, there isn’t much around you, and you got used to freeway speeds, so when you get there, it’s easy to get back up to 60 or more. There’s plenty of space on the shoulder to allow a cop to lie in wait and while I haven’t seen anyone pulled over, I do catch myself going over the 50 MPH sometimes. It’s harder to recognize how fast you’re going when the road is so wide and empty. You don’t have that much around you to gauge your speed either. It definitely takes some vigilance to stay within the limit.
Flying in circles
laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: helicopter, los angeles, observation, videos
10
June
2011
