I think the most beautiful thing in the world is tenderness. It exudes caring, compassion, thoughtfulness, warmth, sensitivity, and love. It could be a mother’s touch, a lover’s gaze, a friend’s affection, or even a stranger’s consideration. Often it’s the simplest gestures that speak volumes, from a stroke of the cheek to a careful brushing back of stray hair to a compliment whispered in your ear. Tenderness creates intimacy and a deeper connection that touches my heart. When I was a kid I always looked forward to getting sick because I never would and when I finally did, my mom would take care of me – tuck me in, touch my forehead gently, sit next to me and watch me sleep. It was one of the most amazing feelings, to know I was so loved and cared for. This picture is one of my absolute favorites of my best friend and I because of the strong connection we have and the lovely intimate moment we shared. It doesn’t look the most tender, but it brings out that sort of strong emotion for me. Isn’t it great?
Posts Tagged ‘friends’
365great Day 221: tenderness
365great Day 161: AcuHoop
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Back in high school, my best friend Katana and I would drive out to Chinatown on a whim and hang out there for the day. We loved browsing Saigon Market (umm why is there a Saigon market in Chinatown??) for all the random trinkets, clothing, and even pets they had. We bought matching clothes, phone charms (back when phones could have charms dangling off them!), and even betta fish. Once when we were shopping around for qi pao (Chinese evening dresses), we happened upon a stand selling AcuHoops. You could get the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6-lb one. We found it to be quite hilarious and I decided I wanted to get one sometime. I believe it was my first year of college that I actually went through with it and chose the 3-lb one. It’s funny because I can’t hula hoop, but when you have a heavy weight like the AcuHoop, I actually got the hang of it quickly! Soon enough I was able to keep it up for over an hour at a time. I trained myself to be able to rotate it clockwise and counterclockwise so I wasn’t always putting the same force on my opposing sides. What fun it was! It’s still one of my favorite ways to “work out” and it really does help trim your mid-section. I think it’s really great! 🙂
On My Mind, episode 4
Ready for another round of On My Mind? Here goes!
~Ha! I was just thinking about how my blog posts used to be so much more insightful/thoughtful/interesting when I started to get the inspiration bug again and went crazy preparing some draft posts. Tons of goodness to come!
~Sooo I had said I didn’t want to buy any more nail polish until I used up one bottle. Just one! Which shouldn’t be that hard since I rarely buy nail polish anyway, but then I came across a BOGO deal and I couldn’t resist! BAH. I bought it and then promptly spilled one all over my carpet (which took out about a third of that bottle). Karma for going against my word? 🙁 I did manage to mostly get it out (and better than I had hoped at least!).
~That nail polish I got? Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri. I’d never tried it before, but that coupon for buy one, get one meant each bottle was $2. While I may not want to pay $4 for some nail polish, $2 was a deal I couldn’t resist. I know, I’m terrible. But you know what? I discovered an AMAZING brush! Like seriously, why don’t all (or at least more) nail polishes have brushes like this? It applies so well, I just love it. Plus, I really love that these nail polishes dry so quickly, since clumsy old me would usually mess up at least three nails before they managed to dry.
~And if you keep up with the blog, you will see that I’ve decided to exchange some of my old nail polishes for some Zoya ones! At least I’m not accumulating more, right? That’s ok, right?!
~My family went out and got a bunch of Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge shampoos because of the current deal for them! Only $0.86 in CA if you bring your own reusable bag. Less in other states since our tax is a high 9%, ugh.
I cleaned the bulbs and put them in a vase.
~About two weeks ago, Missy (one of my cats) broke my Galileo thermometer when she knocked it over – RIP 🙁 – and I learned that the oil they use in it smells naaasty. It smelled like a gas station exploded on my carpet. I guess that’s the only material the bulbs will float in correctly. I cleaned and scrubbed and patted for an hour and the smell didn’t dissipate, so I had to move to another room to sleep. Took about a week of leaving the window open and spraying odor remover on it daily before I could move back. My carpet is forever scarred though – for some reason, it grew a bump that won’t go away.
It used to be a lot worse but it has since shrunk.
~Panda (the boyfriend) was in town earlier in the month and we got a pretty cool room at the Hilton Garden Inn LAX! I loooved the rocker, which was so smooth and made me feel lighter. Reminded me of the zero gravity chairs they have a Brookstone. The bathroom was rather sweet too, with a jacuzzi/hot tub (what’s the difference?) on one side and an electronically-controlled shower on the other. I got to set the shower water to exactly the temperature I wanted!
Here I am demonstrating the rocking chair…
~I had told my cousin about the 1 Second Everyday app, which she was interested in. I’ve been having a blast with it! I was sad, however, that I had redeemed an iTunes gift card for $50 and wasn’t able to split it into two $25 gift codes so she too could get some apps without paying. Then a few days later it dawned on me: gifting an app! I hadn’t thought of it because I never used it (and really wasn’t sure it was even a feature), but I checked and it’s so easy to do it! But by the time I told her, she had already bought the app. Womp, womp… next time!!
~I’ve been doing pretty well with the giveaways I’ve entered and won a couple more, yippee! You’ll see pictures of them after I get them. One in particular I wanted to point out – I actually won another 3-month Conscious Box subscription and this time I got to share an additional one with a friend! I mean, what is more thrilling than winning for you AND a friend of your choice? I picked a super awesome, super supportive friend and she was totally excited. Coincidentally, her birthday was right around then too! Happy birthday!
~I’m so glad I went through that long, long DMV line to get a new picture taken because I am SO much happier with my new picture! The original picture was from when I was in high school and it looks like I have a fake orange tan when in reality I just swam outdoors a lot for our high school team.
The old picture looks a lot more orange in person.
~I’m STILL waiting to get my first Goodie box and Graze box. Waaah! I’ve held myself back from buying snacks because they were supposed to replace my snack food shopping and THEY’RE STILL NOT HERE… -___- I, being hugely reliant on snacking to survive/thrive, feel so forlorn… BUT I should be getting my Goodie box today*! *fingers crossed* My Graze box was prepared on the 11th and if I don’t get it by tomorrow I’m going to contact customer service. Yes, you can call me Cookie Monster.
~And finally, I was SO off-the-walls (maybe too) happy to get an email from the Pink Panel letting me know I’m in their nail care testing group. I had just signed up and filled out the survey for the latest testing group and it was awesome to get that invitation!! I can’t wait – I remember seeing Julep in the survey URL so I’m pretty sure we get to test some Julep products. I’ve yet to try anything from them, but I’d totally love to. I’m turning into a nail polish/hand care fiend. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that we get a $75 Amazon gift card (code, probably) for participating. I’m getting my cats a fun feeding maze I learned about from an article on Squidoo with those funds!
*Yay the Goodie box arrived! Time to rip through it. 🙂
Desserts first
Back in high school, my best friends and I fancied ourselves famous (at least to the Olive Garden waiters) for being the “desserts first” type of people. Every time we got together for a meal at Olive Garden, we’d insist on our dessert item as the appetizer. We usually got a very confused and momentarily dumbfounded waiter who’d check with us: “Are you sure you want to have the dessert come out first?” We’d confidently confirm our choice and eagerly await the sweet treat. To a certain extent we did it to be rebels, but it was also a way of doing what we wanted instead of what was expected.
Over the years, I haven’t gotten the chance to continue this tradition, much to my dismay. I always start a meal saying I’ll get dessert only to get halfway through the entree and be too full to continue. Luckily, at most places they have desserts that I can just eat at home for cheaper anyway so I don’t feel like I missed out on too much. Instead, I happily stock up on loads of sugar-laden snacks at home to satisfy my unwavering sweet tooth. In fact, I have so much junk food at home that it often becomes my meal. I have a bad habit of forgetting lunch these days, or grabbing an ice cream bar in lieu of something more filling/less sugary.
Really what it comes down to is enjoying what I like. Why do I need to go through a ritual of drinks, appetizers, and entree before I can get to my dessert? There shouldn’t be obstacles in my way for such a simple goal. In many ways, this little choice speaks volumes to my own life philosophy. I believe in being able to enjoy what you want and not having to hold back because the world told you so. As long as it’s not irresponsible, I don’t see the harm in having my cake first or buying that item I like or treating myself to a massage. And so I do eat, buy, and experience what matters to me. Don’t get me wrong though – I exhibit a lot of self-control when it comes to making these decisions! I don’t jump at every opportunity to do what I want; I make sure to weigh the pros and cons extensively before diving in.
Small, small world
It’s funny how interconnected we can be. Lately I have come across many situations that make me shake my head at how small the world can be at times (or maybe it’s just LA). The most prominent example is when I commented on a friend and coworker’s Facebook about a post he put up, then later saw that the next person to comment was one of the girls who used to live in my house! The house that we have owned for about 10 years now… At work the next day, I had to ask my coworker how he knew this girl and (dun dun dun…) she’s his cousin! Wow. Of all the coincidences in this universe, that is one I didn’t see coming. So as it turns out, my coworker had been in my house before, many many years ago.
Other such situations include a trip to Wurstküche in downtown LA, where I got into line right behind a fellow 2008 UCLA orientation counselor! Then, later on as I was eating, I looked up to find one of my pledge bros from AKPsi sitting at another table. Imagine that. And many months ago, one of the engineers at work and one of the operations girls were chatting because they found they had both lived in Michigan. When the guy mentioned that he swam, she was interested because she had worked on the coaching staff or been an assistant. Further probing revealed that she had actually been there working with the swim team that he was on during the time that he would have been on the team! And then they both end up at the same (very small) company out in California?!
In addition, that same girl recently found out that her former roommate bartended with the girlfriend of one of our sales guys. Of all the bars in LA and all the roommates and girlfriends these people could have had… Seriously, what’s up with all this interconnectedness? I guess even a large city like Los Angeles can quickly become small after a couple years of building relationships and connections. Eventually you’re no more than a 2nd degree contact to anyone!
Friends for life
So many of my friends have a group from college, or even high school, that they still keep in touch with and hang out with. A good portion of them also have some friends stemming from childhood as well. I wonder what that’s like and if I’ll ever have lifelong friends. The landscape of my life is so variable that dozens of friends have come and gone. The people I spend much of my time with are only friends I’ve met in the past three years or so. I’m so used to moving around and making new friends that it’s hard to imagine knowing someone for that long.
I’ve always hoped that each friendship would be one that would last forever, but as our lives changed, we would grow apart. It also didn’t help that I moved a lot, so many friendships dwindled after not being able to hang out for a long period. The internet has definitely helped to slow down the process of losing touch, but it still happens. At this point, the only person in my life right now who I know will be around for decades is Panda. He’s the best friend I’ve got and anyone else could very well be out of the picture in a few years.
I haven’t given up hope that I can maintain some long-lasting friendships though! I think that business school will offer me a great chance to meet people who I can consider friends forever. In addition, any and all future business partners will probably be great friends and a common interest in our business should keep us in contact for a long time to come. I wish I had a group of close friends who all hung out with each other, but that’s just not the way my life developed. Instead, I will continue to be a connector, bringing together my different sets of friends for gatherings and potentially facilitating some wonderful new bonds.
Friend from abroad
My friend Philosopher is back in town after almost two years! I can’t believe it was so long ago that he first came to visit, or that it went by so quickly. I really look forward to the day when I can visit him in his home country again, hopefully for London 2012.
I’ve taken the rest of the week off for a grand California adventure, spending time from Los Angeles to Sacramento, and many places in between. It was pretty exciting to only have a one day work week, but it’ll be even more exciting once start our trip exploring the towns of the West coast.
I can’t wait and I’m sure we will take plenty of pictures! This is going to be magnificent. 🙂
Sendoff
Well, the time has come. For months, one of my coworkers has been preparing to go off to business school (in China) and today was his official last day. We’ve gone out to lunches, dinners, and even had a little in-house party. We presented him with a cake, a card, a goodie bag, and an iPad! All in all a pretty good sendoff, I’d say. By now all the loose ends are pretty much tied up and his replacement, a friend of his, has been all trained up and is ready to take over his role. Tonight, eight of us joined him at his place for one final shindig to send him off. I’m glad that we got a chance to hang out one more time, since I was getting kind of sad at the end of the work day.
So by this point, all that was left was to spend some quality time with him before he flies off to a faraway land where Facebook and Google don’t exist. Thankfully, we’ve got some techy guys who can set him up with a VPN account so he won’t be completely cut off from the world. After all, he just got a Google+ account and what a shame it would be to set it all up only to never use it!
This time when we left him, it felt right. We’d spent as much time as we could together and got some good old bonding in outside of the office, all of us just friends. It’s the kind of camaraderie I was hoping for when I mentioned potentially setting up happy hour sessions after work. It’s great to get to know my coworkers in a relaxed setting with no time constraints and it’s a pity we don’t do it more often. I hope that it doesn’t always take someone leaving to get us all together. And I hope that we’ll be able to stay in touch as our friend embarks on a new chapter in his life!
Happy hour
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!
My, how the years fly
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?
