Wedding Weekend

Posted on July 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

This weekend, one of my best friends from undergrad got married. I’ve never been in a wedding party and I have to say, it was quite a lot of fun. What was even more fun were all the people who traveled across the country and world to make it there. Because its the people that make the party great. And it was a pretty great party. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in a weekend. Even while driving back to Houston this evening, I kept on laughing in the car at things that were said. I tried to bnter some of these convos as they were happening but they were going at a pretty rapid fire pace.

Sorry if they don’t make much sense. This post is more of a memory blog for my wonderful friends & me to remember the funny things that were said for this celebration weekend. Feel free to message me to add in more as I definitely know I’ve left out a lot. And as for reading JDP’s monologues, well, just try to imagine it 10x more dramatical than just font on the page. It’s hysterical.

great group of friends

KS: I’m SO hungry
LJ : I’m stuffed! We just ate so much at the rehearsal dinner! Why didn’t you eat??
KS: I have anxiety eating in groups

LJ: Wait, you’re really going to bring that burrito with us to eat while we walk around??
KS: yeah! I’m a GIRL on the GO!

KS: Being a waiter is my dream job.
LJ: Oh ok, that’s good to know. Cause you work at google now. Have you ever even waited a table before?
KS: No, but I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants.

JDP: Like, 2 months leading up to the wedding, she’d make all these comments in a nervous chatter like “oh haha, it’s so funny she’s getting married. Just SO funny. I mean, she always told me I’d be the first to get married but it’s okay. So she’s going to be the first of our friends to get married.”
“No really, it’s just SO funny, her wedding dress is going to be one-shouldered. I had always planned to have a one-shouldered wedding dress but since she’s the first to be married, and it is going to be her special day, she deserves to have the one-shouldered wedding dress”

JDP: When I was at the hotel, before I entered the room everyone kept on telling me, she’s really pretty. She just gained a little weight cause she quit smoking.
- Okay?? Like 4 times people told me!
“Oh no, don’t go in there. Ahh! You walked into the room. She’s really pretty you see?!”
-Yeah so she quit smoking and found highly addictive substitute called caramel to pour on all her food. That’s why she’s gained weight.

(Rihanna’s S&M song comes on)
LJ: Do you use whips and chains?
KS: NO! I’m not plain but I’m not a freak

JDP: Once I was at the bootcamp and there was this tiny little girl who was ripped. Like complete lean muscle. So I told her, “You’re really tiny.” And she told me “I know.” I was in complete awe. Now anyone who gives me a compliment, I tell them “I know”

JDP: What the heck is in these gift bags?? (there was like toothpaste in one and hand sanitizer in the other)
JDP: It’s like hey here’s your gift bag, OH NO, that one with the toothpaste, that one goes to HER

LJ: So is it true, once you go black you never go back?
KS: Oh I went back, I went running all the way back.

KM: So there we were, stuck in the middle of the beach house in UbaTuba with this neo nazi, the girl who says the “spirits” drink the alcohol for her so she cant get drunk, and the guy who likes C. YEAH.

KS: I actually can’t wait to get back to SanFran. It’s so cool
LJ: I see how it is. Austin’s not “cool” enough for you
KS: No like the weather is much cooler. This super hot Texas weather is physically tiring at a certain point.

One more thing: can’t forget CG’s impressions of Jonah from “Summer Heights High” – the Tongan accent the whoooole weekend. “Sheeeet, but meees, meees, my dad…” yeah, and I’ll end it at that.

Love to CS, KS, JDP, KM, SK & the new bride, Mrs. Letelier.

yeah, and there was a furby at the rehearsal dinner. decided to take a goof pic w it anyways...

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Bed Intruders & Abductions: Life in Houston

Posted on February 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

hmmmmm, so i get these 2 emails today. The first one during class, I almost snickered outloud. All I could think of was that youtube video where they guy is ranting on and on about a “bed intruder” & “hide yo kids, hide yo wife”

The 2nd email, I was shocked that someone was abducted at gunpoint at 4:30pm in the afternoon!!! Seriously?! It was still light outside. I mean, I know UH isn’t in the greatest neighborhood, and there are sketchy areas around it (I liken it to Compton) but yikes! This is the stuff you hear about in Brazil and while yes, I know people in Brazil that the same thing has happened to, it’s South America. It’s kind of something you expect if you are not on guard. Ick. Anyways, thus are my school ground surroundings as a grad student in Houston. Continue reading →

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Foursquare Info Chart

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

currently obsessed listening to: Punching in a Dream – the Naked & Famous

to make your own foursquare chart, click here:  www.stormpixel.com/infographr/

I’m surprised! I classified with early adopter status being in the later half of the 2 millionth people range to sign up (that’s a mouthful to say). And I considered myself a person jumping on the bandwagon train when signing up in August. When I started (on the insistance of one of my friends obsessed with being #1 on the leaderboard in Austin) I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to let people know my location. I felt that was creepy, and I most definitely did not want to push it to twitter.

Then something happened in between getting that 2nd badge (everyone automatically gets the first badge so it wasn’t too exciting), repeatedly going to the same coffee shop within a week to study everyday to steal that mayorship (only 4 days away!)… I couldn’t stop checking in! Now it’s become an automatic habit where I check-in upon walking into an establishment. Why I feel the need to update and let my other friends that I’m not with, know where I am, I have no idea. But I do. And it’s one of my favorite things of the moment. Continue reading →

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candles

Posted on February 14, 2011 | 1 Comment

listening to: passion pit. because they were my 2009 summer band.

this weekend, I realized I have problems with candles. I think I am accident and fire prone. its really not my fault as I am a double-fire sign. that’s what I’m blaming anyways. Continue reading →

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tumblr-ing

Posted on February 8, 2011 | 1 Comment

listening to: little comets, “tricolour”

yes, its spelled tricoulour because they are british.
same as how my british pathology professors writes “mucous” for “mucus” – ick I know, but there are lots of diseases to know, especially eye related that require that word…

ANYWAYS, did not come to wordpress to discuss spelling. Came to write my thoughts on tumblr and how I admire those that can make a great tumblr account since mine is looking quite sad and I really just don’t have any motivation/time to make it better. That’s basically what this post is about. It’s just incoherent ramblings of my un-asked for thoughts on tumblr. Continue reading →

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Bite Hard.

Posted on January 23, 2011 | 1 Comment

Currently listening to: Franz Ferdinand, Bite Hard.

Bite the Bullet. Have you ever wondered where the phrase came from? Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyways because there’s war history behind it and we all know I love history.

It’s from the Civil War (which holds the 2nd highest number of casualties after WW2). But when soldiers were injured, they were given a bullet to actually bite on to endure the pain of their limb being amputated. Bullets are made out of lead, and since lead is malleable, the soldiers biting down on the bullet wouldn’t shatter their teeth and just be left with imprints on the bullet. If you really think about it and even try to actually imagine it, it makes you cringe and shudder, so don’t. Those days are long gone.

Well, Ferdinand’s song is more about feelings and biting hard on the bullet when he’s in emotional pain, a lot more trivial than what people went through in the mid 1800′s, but I still always connect the 2 together. And that’s my history trivia fact of the day.

Btw, according to google images – those are what civil war bullets looked like.

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RBils & leather

Posted on October 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Just how fabulous is Rachel Bilson? Look how she pairs the leather jacket with the soft floral dress. After Argentina, I’m obsessed with leather jackets. They are so great. And the shoes? TDF!!

I have majorly crushed on her since Day 1 of the O.C. She is my absolute #1 celeb crush. Just look how she pairs everything together, and looks always approvablaly put together, even when she’s not even trying (well here she’s trying since its the Chanel 2011 spring show, but look at other photos when she’s filling up the gas tank…and looks perfectly adorable). She even pulls off the middle hair part amazingly. She can do no wrong in my book. She’s RBils.

Here’s the leather jacket she’s wearing – how perfect. I need this. If only I lived further up north to justify another leather jacket for the season.

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facebook creepin’

Posted on October 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Currently listening to: Orange Shirt by Discovery

Last December, during  a graduation party, one of my friends told me that her house had been robbed and her parents had to fly back check on everything and file a police report. The least to say, her graduation party was ruined. I later visited her in February and the family was still perplexed on who would rob their house and in addition to the more expensive items gone, selectively take the “designer clothes” out of the girls’ closets. Well, as of a few weeks ago, the mystery has been solved and the story is so surreal and freaky that something like that would happen to someone I know, I decided to share it on my blog post even though it has nothing to do with Brazil.

The story: my friend was “facebook friends” with this girl from high school. They barely talked in h.s. but sometimes its just the polite thing to do to accept an old high school graduate of your same class. Sure. Why not. Anyways, this girl saw on my friends facebook status that she was excited about graduation. Then the girl and her boyfriend figured that my friend’s family would be out of town for her graduation, looked up their address and robbed the house over the weekend.

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list of brasil-ness

Posted on August 10, 2010 | 2 Comments

Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo

Listening to: Mine by Taylor Swift – ON REPEAT.

So its been about 3 weeks since I’ve returned to the States. More specifically – Texas. I apologize for my lack of updates – things kinda got crazy in South American with the World Cup going on. And then traveling in Argentina for 3 weeks was a whirlwind in which I would love to write a few things about that as well. But I’ll focus on my living experience in SP for this blog topic.

In retrospect, Sao Paulo & I didn’t really get along that well. I lived in the city for 2 months. Granted, I didn’t live in Ibirapuera or Avenue Paulisa (where SP’s famous art museum is located in the picture) but even hanging out in these areas, I wasn’t that impressed. I know Paulistas will highly defend their city and that’s slightly understandable, but I wouldn’t defend Houston from someone who said they hated it cause I can understand its faults. I don’t understand why Paulista’s don’t acknowledge their cities faults. It is a great city. Just not for me to live long-term.

First of all, its a HUGE city. I don’t mind huge cities – NYC is glorious. Buenos Aires = TDF (to die for). But Sao Paulo is so spread out, taking an 1 hr+ to get to a restaurant, the mall…started to be the norm. If you could get to the city airport within an hour, that was great. Once, when there was an accident, it took me 4 hours to get from Morumbi back home. I fell asleep in the car…

Sao Paulo has great restaurants. Fantastic. The authentic and original Fogo de Chao was carnivorous heaven. All the rodizios. The wide range of night-clubs for every occasion that were open till 7am… but in the end, I get bored with those things. I want to run around the park (and not worry about being mugged). For me, SP was too much of a banking, working & shopping city. I adore shopping, but even I got “mall-ed out” in SP. It’s all malls! After work, it’s eat & shop. Maybe I will give SP a second chance in 2014 when the World Cup returns to Brasil but for now, Rio de Janeiro is my #1 fun city in my Brazil book.

Anyways, here’s a list of things I noticed of brasileiros:

  1. For breakfast: they consistently eat French bread, papaya & milk WITH coffee. And for the French bread, I noticed many brazilians would tear out the soft and yummy middle insides to throw away, and eat the shell with butter. Exact opposite of what I wanted! And, be careful when you accept milk in your coffee. Because you will be getting a 50/50 or even 70/30% of milk to coffee ratio. And it will be like drinking flavored coffee milk.
  2. Its common for the Brazilian housecleaners to wash the sidewalk of their property & garage driveway with soap and a scrubby brush. Why? I asked them…and each time I got a confused stares as they told me that it was dirty and needed to be cleaned. Duh.  And when I mentioned that I would never bother to scrub my driveway, I got horror looks and asked if Americans were dirty….uh no.
  3. Every store has coffee, water, espresso and maybe even some crackers. If you get a little hungry and need a caffeine pick me up and don’t want to go to a cafe shop, just go to a store, pretend to be interested in their objects, and you will soon be offered espresso and a cookie. Not saying I did that…just saying you could, if you were ever stuck in Brasil and on a limited budget. Ps: espresso is pretty cheap so this technique is best done when the cafe shops are far away. Otherwise, you’re stuck making small talk with a store owner until you can finish the coffee.
  4. Brazilians sales associates are extremely helpful. As soon as you make your entrance inside, they will pounce on you and if you give them an inkling that you are interested in a certain color/style, they will start pulling out other dresses that might suit your needs. It can be overwhelming at first, just stand your ground and be a snob – no, that’s not what I’m looking for.
  5. Brazil has TONS of yummy fruit. So much sweeter than the U.S. I was appalled at our fruit quality when I got back – def sub par to Brazil’s.
  6. Paperclips are pointed at the tip, like an arrow. They aren’t curved and rounded like ours in the U.S. Something I noticed working at an office for a few weeks.
  7. Brazilian’s eat french fries & pizza with forks and knives. You will feel like a barbarian eating them with your hands.
  8. Brazilian’s use MSN & orkut. Some have heard of facebook but rarely use it, and gchat is out of the question.
  9. Brazilian’s are aghast when you suggest to take the local bus. Buses are mostly for poor people who live in favelas, can’t afford a car, and therefore the buses can be dangerous for people who look as if they don’t belong.
  10. Brazilian’s are very friendly. They love to talk and make small talk. At the beginning encounter of many random people, they all assumed I was a  Spaniard,  because of my accent and love for Torres & D. Villa. Hrmm….nope. 50% american, 50% brazilian chinese!

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Rumo ao hexa!!

Posted on June 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

Currently watching: Swiss vs. Chile

  1. Rumo ao hexa – Win a 6th
  2. Cala a boca Galvao – Shut up Galvao

These are a few phrases you hear around in Brazil. Phrase 1 refers to winning a 6th star. We’re really proud of our stars, i’ll explain later if you don’t know what i’m talking about. Phrase 2, in case you’ve seen it on twitter (as it was a trending topic for last week) is a joke someone made up. Galvao is the sports announcer for the main brazilian tv channel, Globo. Lots of people find his voice and high speed way of talking annoying, so someone started the trend on twitter and told him to shut up, and whatdyaknow, it stuck and somehow made itself famous around the world.

When you live abroad, there are certain aspects of your life that are going to change. I’ve accepted the fact that Sao Paulo at night-time isn’t a safe place to be walking by myself. I’ve also learned that I have a love of their national sport of futebol. Like a true brasileira.

Brazil is crazy about the world cup. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such country fervor for a sports game. to them, its def not just about the game, its their national pride. since 1930, Brazil is the only country to have participated in every single world cup held. they have won five times, and to win a 6th time means they would have to cram a 6th star on top of their team crest.

On days that Brazil plays, the whole country shuts down. work, banks, stores are all closed. only restaurants and bars are open. its like adding 4 more holidays in their holiday filled calendar. posters are put up around town with cancellations to certain events. they write “causa: jogo de futebol” reason: soccer game. Pretty much every office has TV’s set up for the other games and everyone’s always watching. It’s a nice break and gives something to do at work.

Streets hang layers and layers of little plastic brazilian flags. Some even paint their whole street yellow and green: the main colors of brazil’s soccer jersey. TV news reporters show that it’s not just a Sao Paulo/big city thing either. Up north in Bahia, Fortelza, all the way to the small cities in the south, the country has such an electrifying gung-ho about cheering on their team, it’s really quite exciting. When Brazil wins, or scores goals. The whole town is in non-stop uproar with fireworks booming all around. Last night, there was about 30 minutes of constant booming of fireworks and the whole night had sporadic bursts.

Other than tennis, I’ve actually fallen in love and become obsessed with watching/knowing every move of the sport. I’ve never cared much for watching sports, its something done more as a social activity for me. Sure, I like football and basketball. It’s fun to cheer for your college team or fav professional team. But when it comes to soccer, there’s something so mesmerizing at watching how talented footwork can be, dribbling the ball, who’s passing the ball. Today before our game with the Ivory Coast, I felt nervous and a fluttery feeling in my stomach, just like how I felt when about to start the finals of a tennis tournament. I’ve watched every single world cup game this year (except for the ones that are at 8:30am, usually I catch the ending of those) Before I came to Brazil, I only knew about Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo from their good looks. Now I have a soft spot for Kaka & Torres. I know the difference between the Brazilian Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Portuguese Ronaldo. And with a help of some of my soccer friends, I understand a lot more little and subtler points of the game.

I don’t know! It’s just find it so funny to find myself completely changed and so passionate about a sport for being in a country for only 3 months. It’s quite exciting when you find out you really like something. It’s like just discovering icecream. You knew it always existed. Then you went to visit Vermont, saw Ben & Jerry’s, and cant believe you lived this long without being obsessed with all their flavors. Oatmeal chocolate chip? Yum. Well same with soccer/futebol.

I even find myself yelling and rooting for the US team when everyone else in Brazil is silent and just looks at me and then asks my cousins in portuguese if I’m american. I find myself arguing with other’s that the US doesn’t suck, and we should have won against Slovenia. Even if I don’t know what I’m really talking about… Before I came to Brazil, embarrassingly I didn’t really know if the US even had a team and even if we’re not in the Brazilian elite ranks of soccer, I think we’re pretty good to hold our own in ties.  Even if I’m not crazy about the U.S.’s crest (which I think is ugly) I can’t wait to get a Benny Feilhaber jersey and come back and cheer the US in 2014 in the stadium. I’ve never felt happier about being Brazilian and American. 2 teams to cheer for.

So will we win our 6th star this time around? i surely hope so.

and the celebrations that will ensue the night of July 11? unimaginable. i wonder if i’ll go deaf.

me & fernanda (godmother)

Ana-Keila (daughter-in-law of fernanda) her brother & sister.

p.s. #10 is Kaka’s number. just in case you didn’t know. *sigh*

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