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Shake shake shake!

Published

jozjozjoz

on July 29, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, i love la and joz = dork

. 9 Comments

Shake Shake Shake!
Shake your booty!

(Is that song stuck in your head now?! You’re welcome!)

I was working from home when today’s 5.4 Chino Hills earthquake struck. The building shook suddenly and I thought the earthquake was over, until a rolling motion followed shortly thereafter. When the shaking started, I looked over at Yoshi (we were both in the office) to see if I was just imagining it or not. Once I got confirmation it was an earthquake (and things weren’t toppling down on us), I was like “I’m going to blog this before anyone else does!” And so I made this post at LA Metblogs WHILE THE ROOM WAS STILL SHAKING. Damn, I’m hardcore. Either that, or my survival instinct loses to my blogging instinct.

I’m just glad I wasn’t on-site at my client’s location at the moment (like I was supposed to be). I’d have been up on the 18th floor of a high-rise building. Having been through more minor quakes on the 20th floor at my old job, I know that I don’t like the swaying of tall buildings, and I especially dislike the creaking noises the building makes during and after a quake.

Anyway, right after I posted and checked the USGS website for info, I tried to call my Mom because she was much closer to the epicenter than I was (her house is approx 15 miles away). I have 3 different cell phones with 3 different carriers and none of them were working. So I picked up my land line and called Mom’s land line. It was just a relief when she answered the phone and I heard her voice.

I asked if everything was ok, and she said, “I tried to call you and your brother but the cell phones aren’t working. I was drinking coffee and it spilled all over the place and something fell on the piano and dented it, but I’m ok.” Then she described what she heard and felt: a loud boom followed by an intense shaking and then some rolling. She said that she was trying to wipe up the coffee but then when the shaking continued, she decided to grab her purse and run for the door (she was already near the front door). But as she got there, the shaking stopped.

I was just glad to hear that she was fine and she said, “The only thing that happened here is that the piano got dented, but it’s ok. It was already dented.”

Yes, our piano was already dented? Yes. It was caused by a JozQuake™ several years ago.

The joke is that it first got dented by my fat ass. If only it got dented because I had buns of steel. But no. Here’s how it really went down…

One day I was backing up around the piano (beep! beep! beep!) and I misjudged where the piano was behind me (also, I misjudged how big my butt was). I backed right into the upright piano. BOOM!

There was a big scholar’s rock being displayed on top of the piano which began to teeter and totter precariously when I hit the piano with my ass and started the JozQuake™.

My Dad was behind me and saw the toppling the scholar’s rock begin its journey in the general direction toward my oblivious backside. Dad tried to catch it but it was a pretty big rock and it wasn’t quite close enough to me to actually hit me so he thought better of it and let it crash onto the piano, rather than potentially hurt himself in the process. (I know you’re thinking, “It’s just a rock.” But let me just say, my Dad collected only the most beautiful, high quality, and expensive scholar’s rocks so this rock was undoubtedly worth well over several hundred dollars. Let’s not mention how much the piano cost.)

My Mom saw all this happen from across the room at yelled at me not to get hit by the rock while simultaneously yelling at my Dad for even thinking about catching it. (How my Mom can yell so many things at so many people at the same time still amazes me.)

Lucky for me, the rock did not hit me and ended up on the ground. Also lucky for me, the rock was undamaged, too. But the same couldn’t be said about the piano, seeing as it just got hit by a giant rock. DOH!

I assumed my Dad was going to be mad at me and my carelessness… for almost breaking his rock (he LOVED his rocks) and possibly my back, and especially for denting up the piano, so I apologized to him right away.

But instead of being mad, he kind of laughed and said to me, “It’s OK; just as long as you’re OK. Now every time I see the dent, I’ll just think of you.”

My Dad is the bestest!

PS - For those who are wondering, the Bro is fine, too.

Total meltdown

Published

jozjozjoz

on July 19, 2008

in :: bro ::, General and b-school

. 10 Comments

Last night I had a total meltdown.

I could have not admitted it, not posted it to my blog and let the memory of it fade into the ether since the only witness to this was Yoshi. And Yoshi would have kept it private, too. But even though it’s totally humiliating, I can admit when I’m behaving like an absolute freakazoid, so here’s my confession of what happened.

After a long week of work, I headed home from the office after braving Friday night traffic in L.A. I had wanted to stop by Target on the way home to pick up a couple of items, but Yoshi said I should come straight home and we could go together to the Best Buy/Target closer to our home since I had something to return to Best Buy.

Actually, I need to back up.

When I graduated in April, I received a lot of wonderful gifts from my friends and family. My Bro and his gf were extremely generous and got me more than one gift. One was a new digital camera & memory card, which in itself was more than what I asked for (which was nothing). But then they also got me a Wii Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) dancepad and game… except that when they showed up for the dinner at graduation and saw the Wii we set up… with the DDR dancepad we already had, they were like “Oops! Sorry! I guess you’ll have to take it back to Best Buy!”

Fast forward 4 months later, the unopened DDR and the receipt are still sitting in our office in the same gift bag it came in. And DOH! The return policy says that we have 30 days to return or exchange it.

So I, not being the type of person who buys things and then returns them, didn’t really realize there was this policy, even though Yoshi tried to explain it to me. (Ok, ok. So I wasn’t listening when Yoshi was talking… my bad!)

Now four months later, we’re wondering if we can get a refund (doubtful) or hopefully store credit for something other than a second DDR dancepad and game.

So off we went to Target/Best Buy in West Hollywood on our Friday night (Whoo hoo! Don’t we live exciting lives?!). Yoshi dropped me off at Best Buy and headed to Target to start finding the things on our list. I stood in line at the Customer Service desk for a good fifteen minutes because the guys at the counter were evidently returning an XBox that had been opened and the Best Buy associate was (rightfully) going through the entire contents of the box to see that every component was still there. And there was another guy in front of me in line. And of course, there was only one register open.

I finally got to the counter and hoped for the best. I had the original receipt in hand and the still-in-plastic Wii DDR. Jose looked in the system and said, “Well, you’re lucky because the transaction is still in the system but I can’t give you a refund or even store credit. The only thing I can do for you is to give you an exchange for another item tonight.”

“Are you sure it has to be tonight?” I asked. “I literally don’t have any idea what I need to buy. I already have a Wii Fit, Wii Rockband, and all the games that I want to play right now. My living room is already full of Wii shit. I’m not going to be able to spend all that right now, I don’t think.”

Jose looked at me and said, “Well, how much longer? You can’t take another month on this. How about a week? Is that enough time to think about it?”

I shrugged. “I guess it will have to be,” I answered. “Thanks so much for your help.”

He made a note in the system that I could exchange the item for other merchandise for another week.

I called Yoshi, who was already wandering through the Target next door and explained the situation. Yoshi said, “Hey, since we’re here, let’s just figure out what to buy and make the exchanges today so we don’t have to come back another day. Besides, Target is open until 10 so I can just leave and we can come back after we’re done there.”

“Ok,” I said. And I waited for Yoshi to come over.

The Wii DDR dance pad cost $69.99 + tax, so we had to figure out what to buy at Best Buy that would cost roughly the same price. After the stress of worrying about whether or not I was going to be able to get anything from Best Buy, the stress of spending $70 seemed a lot preferable… at first.

Then, after wandering around Best Buy for 20 minutes and not seeing anything at that price point that we wanted, we were relegated to asking ridiculous questions like, “Do you want a new mouse?” “How about a new laptop cooling pad?” “Can I buy a new laptop? How about one that fits in my pocket?”

We didn’t really need anything and anything we did want to buy was out of stock or way out of the price range.

We decided that we didn’t need either a mouse or a cooling pad, but Yoshi needed a new USB hub ($18) and so we got that and kept wandering. I was still carrying my DDR in a giant party bag around the store. It was starting to get heavy.

After 40 minutes, I was really losing it. (I had started to lose it 20 minutes earlier when I had suggested a mouse.)

We went back to the Wii area and decided to buy a $19 Wii nunchuk since we haven’t seen our original nunchuk since my graduation party in April. If we find the original, then we’ll have two nunchuks to use.

About $30 to go.

Who knew it would be so hard for us to spend $30 at Best Buy?

We walked ’round and ’round and I decided I needed to get something to protect the new digital camera my Bro and his gf had given me for my birthday. After going through about 50 different camera cases, I found a cute little camera case for $15.

Just $15 more to spend.

I thought, “Well, since I am protecting my camera, maybe I should get something to protect my iPhone since it’s dented and scratched since I didn’t put it in a case or even any kind of skin on it.”

We went around to the iPhone accessories section and I was faced with a couple of dozen choices. To say that I was overwhelmed at this point is an understatement. Yoshi had already noticed that I was staring into space and mumbling to myself and was trying to pick up the pace.

I noticed that there were two Best Buy sales associates in the mobile phone section and I thought about asking for help. Except that they were both too busy flirting with a pretty girl in a short skirt to notice me standing there. This in itself wasn’t too bothersome, except that the pretty girl was talking a lot really loudly and she was a complete moron. “Oh, it’s Hollywood,” she cooed to the guys. “You know how it is here.”

I rolled my eyes and ignored the scene. I couldn’t hear what the guys were saying back to her, but I did hear her response… “that’s so GAY!” You know the way she said it. Like the way little boys say it on the playground not because they know what it means, but because they know it’s supposed to be “bad.”

I. Hate. That.

We were in a shopping center in WEST HOLLYWOOD for pete’s sake! That’s (almost) like standing in the Castro calling the guys there fags when you’re not one yourself.

And then she giggled loudly. And I looked back and I caught the eye of one of the guys. I must have given him the look o’ death because he meekly (and quickly) looked away and pretended like he was busy with the other customer… the pretty but incredibly stupid, stupid girl.

I was pissed. Not at any one thing in particular, but all the little things in combination. Everything was rubbing me the wrong way.

I got huffy. “I don’t want anything for my iPhone!” I declared loudly to Yoshi (who had also overheard that conversation) and I stomped away.

I was losing it rapidly.

“Just pick a DVD. Any DVD and we can be done with this,” I snapped at Yoshi. Now I was taking it out on someone who had not done anything to piss me off.

Saying “pick any DVD” was not really good suggestion because, well, it’s just not. So Yoshi was going through the aisles as quickly as possible, trying to find a single DVD that we didn’t have and wanted to own. Yoshi brilliantly remembered that of all the Harry Potter movies that are out on DVD, there was one that we don’t own (Prisoner of Azkaban) and every time I look at the DVD shelf, I go “Are we missing one? Which one are we missing?” and then I never remember the answer. Yoshi started looking for the Harry Potter section and I was half-following, near tears at this point because I just wanted out of the Best Buy. I caught up to Yoshi standing in front of the Harry Potter DVDs… Sorcerer’s Stone, Goblet of Fire… NO AZKABAN!

DAMMIT! The one DVD we were actually looking for… NOT THERE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes… Yoshi told me to stand somewhere and just wait and was already trolling for another DVD. I ignored the instruction to wait and took two steps, turned to the right and saw LUST, CAUTION on the top shelf. I grabbed it. “How about this?” I asked, not caring about the answer. Yoshi diplomatically answered, “Have you even seen it? {No} Is it any good? {I dunno}” But I said, “It’s Ang Lee. I’ll take it. Let’s go.” And I started barreling back toward the Customer Service desk.

Luckily there was no line this time and Jose was still there. He smiled at me and I said, “I’ve been wandering around the store for over an hour to find stuff to buy!” And he nicely started the return and ringing me up. And I was babbling because I was still upset and annoyed at everything. I was huffing and puffing at Yoshi about the idiot sales guys in the mobile phone section and I said loudly, “Look, I didn’t really NEED help back there, but it would have been nice if just one of those guys had stopped flirting with the hot chick in the tiny skirt and OFFERED to help me.”

And Jose looked up from ringing me up and said, “Uh oh. Not this store, I hope…”

And Yoshi said, “Unfortunately, yeah. Back in the mobile phone section.”

Jose looked up and saw them still sitting there. “Oh I know who you’re talking about.” He turned around and whispered into the Manager’s ear, pointing back at the mobile phone section. And then he stepped back and seamlessly finished our transaction and said, “I’m sorry about that. I informed the manager of your troubles.” Wow. I didn’t mean to tattle on anyone, but I didn’t care. And Jose had been doubly nice to me already. I could feel the tears subsiding. I wasn’t going to burst into tears in public, thank god.

With that, our Best Buy adventure was over, so we stopped to drop our stuff of in the car and headed over to Target to get the things that we had originally come for before the entire Best Buy detour. Target was pretty uneventful but it was a little stressful because I was still looking around at 10 when they closed and all the lines at the cash registers were totally long. But after getting through there and having to go pay for parking and finding out the parking machines could not take credit cards but only cash and finding cash to pay for parking and then finally navigating through that crazy ass parking lot to finally, finally get home… yay home!

We walked up to our front door with our merchandise in hands, tired and weary and glad to be there.

I had made it home without crying… almost.

As Yoshi unlocked the front door and stepped in, I waited patiently on the front step, standing next to the light by the front door, where moths frequently like to congregate. I try to ignore them most of the time, but as I was walking toward the open front door, I saw it from the corner of my eye. It was coming straight at my face!

OMFG!!!!!!! THE MOTH IS DIVE BOMBING ME! I turned my body and my head to avoid it, but it had gained too much speed and it hit me square in the left temple.

OMG! OMG! OMG!

I HATE MOTHS! I HATE MOTHS SO MUCH! THEY SCARE THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME AND ONE TOUCHED ME ON MY FACE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I tried not to scream. I was standing near a very echo-y stairwell which leads up to the front door of neighbors we really like. I started to whimper. Or at least that’s what I’m going to call it. I was making noises but I was really just trying to keep the screams in. And I was totally immobilized from the shock and horror of seeing an EVIL, EVIL MOTH FLYING RIGHT AT MY HEAD.

Yoshi turned around and was wondering what I was doing, still standing outside, facing the wrong direction and making strange noises.

“A moth… a moth… a moth FLEW INTO MY FACE!” I stammered out.

Yoshi knew better than to mock me this time, and pulled me into the house. “It’s ok, you’re ok…” Yoshi reassured me, closing and locking the front door behind me.

“IT TOUCHED MY FACE! A MOTH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” I blurted out.

And then I lost it.

I started crying. Not just a couple of tears streaming down my face but full on blubbering and all the while muttering something about moths being evil and wanting to hurt me.

Because if it wasn’t completely obvious by now, I am totally completely, intensely, and unapologetically phobic of moths. I had made it all the way through the night of Best Buy hell and I was just about to walk into the safety and comfort of my home and the one thing that I just didn’t need at that moment was to get attacked by a moth on my doorstep.

“I NEED A SHOWER!!!” I started to sob through my tears. Now that the front door was closed, I was getting louder and Yoshi took my hand and led me to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

And I got undressed and stepped into the shower with tears and snot streaming down my face, poisonous moth dust eating up the left side of my head.

“I FEEL LIKE A LOSER!” I whined, alternately feeling sorry for myself for being such a pathetic crybaby and feeling sorry for Yoshi for having to take care of such a pathetic crybaby.

I was still crying in the shower, but knowing that the evil moth dust was getting washed away made me feel a lot better.

“You’re not a loser,” said Yoshi, comforting me from outside the shower. “You just had a long, trying day.”

Even so, I still felt like a loser for throwing a tantrum like a two-year old, but I did feel a little better and stopped crying by the time I was done with my shower. And when I got out, Yoshi was waiting to wrap me up in a warm towel, give me a popsicle, and take me to bed.

Wow.

I’m one lucky girl, even if I am a crybaby.

Two years ago today, my life changed forever

Published

jozjozjoz

on June 24, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family :: and :: mom ::

. 6 Comments

How do you start a post like this?

The Rice Fairy came and I didn’t even notice

Published

jozjozjoz

on June 13, 2008

in :: mom ::, food and joz = dork

. 1 Comment

This morning Yoshi woke up and went out the back door to put something on the back porch.

“Why is there rice outside?”

???

I went outside to look and sure enough, there was a 20 lb. bag of rice sitting on our back porch!

How did that get there!?

Then I remembered that this past Sunday, my Mom had stopped by to leave me a bunch of stuff while I was working and left some things back there for me… but because the bag of rice was not in the same area where the other stuff was, I somehow missed it.

Anyway, thanks Rice Fairy… er, I mean MOM!

(And thanks to Yoshi for finding it!)

More Mom time

Published

jozjozjoz

on June 4, 2008

in :: mom ::, food, joz = dork and yoshi

. 5 Comments

My Mom had an appointment nearby this afternoon and I invited her over when she finished up. I was working from home, and I was still working when she got here, so I told her she needed to leave me alone (not talk to me while I was on the computer) until I was done with what I was working on.

She went outside to water the lawn and the neighbor’s garden instead. When she came back inside, I was just about wrapping up work for the day and she had something round and dirty in her hand.

“I found a quarter!” she exclaimed. “Your neighbor came home and thanked me for watering the garden because she hadn’t done it in so long… and then I found a quarter!”*

Then she looked at the muddy thing in her hand and she handed it over to Yoshi asking, “Is this a quarter?”

Hilarious.

(Yes, it was a quarter… Mom is up 25 cents!)

Mom and I hit the road to run a couple of errands… one in K-Town and then I convinced to come with me to check out the (somewhat) new Fresh & Easy neighborhood market in Hollywood with me. I had a $5 off a $20 purchase coupon that was expiring, so I thought I should go and check it out. The store is located just down the street from Hollywood & Highland and at 7pm, there was still a ton of traffic on the roads and it was a pain to get there.

The store itself was certainly clean: items were fresh and it was easy. But everything seemed pricey; I couldn’t bring myself to spend more than $1 on a small bunch of green onions when I am used to paying a dime or a quarter for a bunch at the Asian supermarket. My Mom said she didn’t need anything, so I said, “Let’s spend $20 on junk food!” which she agreed with surprisingly quickly.

We ended up buying boysenberry granola (mine… shut up, Efren! I haven’t had granola in ages!), blue tortilla chips (mom’s), peach flavored gummy candy (mine), white tortilla chips (mom’s), chocolate covered espresso beans (mine), a loaf of bread (mom’s), and a can of chili (mine, for yoshi). As I scanned the items (self-check out — which scared my Mom because she’d never done self check-out before), I realized the total was shy of $20… we needed to spend two more dollars to use the $5 coupon! I sent my Mom off to spend $2 more… she came back with ANOTHER bag of white tortilla chips for me.

Bingo! Total before coupon: $20.56! Final total: $15.56!

As we were leaving the store, I went to go validate the parking ticket. Except I accidentally stuck the ticket in twice (punched twice) so the validation wasn’t going to scan properly. The Fresh & Easy guy I talked to (boy, that makes him sound really slutty) said, “Oh don’t worry about that. Just show the parking attendant on your way out.” So we headed to the elevator to go down to the parking level our car was parked. My Mom was pushing the cart of junk food and as the elevator doors opened, she started pushing the cart into the elevator ahead of me but stopped abruptly when the girl inside started screaming. My Mom shrieked and jumped backwards into me.

“What happened?” I asked.

My Mom looked back into the elevator where a really loud-talking oblivious girl was yelling into her cell phone. “The girl startled me. I thought she was yelling AT ME.”

We got into the elevator when we realized the girl was just having an incredibly loud and obnoxious conversation on her cell phone. (I wonder if it occurred to her that the reason the person on the other line couldn’t hear her was because SHE WAS IN AN ELEVATOR AND GOING DOWN 3 STORIES TO UNDERGROUND PARKING?!) The girl continued her conversation (loudly and obliviously) until she walked out of the elevator on the same level we were parked.

“My heart is still beating so fast. That girl scared me!” Mom repeated.

I started insulting the girl in Chinese under my breath until my Mom gave me a look to stop it.

At the parking lot entrance, my f-ed up parking ticket wasn’t scanning properly (as predicted). The parking attendant was not amused and threatened to make me pay $6 for parking (we are supposed to get 1 hour of parking validated). No! That would negate my $5 coupon! So I asked him nicely if he could let me out since you could see the validation stamp. He debated for a second and saw the line of cars getting longer behind mine and said, “OK,” as he filled out a sheet of paper and used his super-secret letting people out card to lift the gate. Whoo hoo!

Anyway, we went back to my place after that and Yoshi was home visiting with our friend T. Mom had to hit the road, so after walking her out, I had a quick dinner and hung out with Yoshi and T for the rest of the evening.

A couple of days ago, Bossdude had said that he couldn’t write about his life in such detail (in reference to my Memorial Day post). I’m pretty sure the implication was, “OMG, Joz, how can you write about your inane life in such mind-numbingly boring detail?!”

Maybe because my life is so damn boring now that this is as exciting as it gets?

*Mandarin is in italics

Memorial Day Weekend 2008

Published

jozjozjoz

on May 27, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General, i love la, joz = dork and travel

. 4 Comments

Since December of last year, I’ve gone on an out of town trip an average of twice a month. You would think that for a long weekend, I would want to go on a trip, but that would be wrong. I hate traveling during holiday weekends, when everyone else is traveling.

I had a lot to catch up with around the house; general chores and stuff. Yoshi is usually the one who cleans and stuff around the house (since I am so horribly bad at it), but I figured that I should pitch in so long as I had some “extra time.” Also, I made a mess of the kitchen, so cleaning some of the more awful messes (especially ones I cause) are really my responsibility. I should have made an appearance at Darleene’s birthday party on Saturday, but I since I am almost always using the excuse that “I’m never home” so I don’t have to clean, I figured leaving for a party on cleaning day wasn’t a good idea.

By the end of the evening, I was tired of being home all day, and I whined my way into having Yoshi go to the movies with me. We ended up stopping by the drugstore to buy a stash of candy, grabbing a quick bite of pizza, and then watching “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at the Century City AMC*. Boy, that is a long movie! It’s a good thing I looked at the running time (2 hours, 20 minutes!) before the movie started. I decided not to drink anything until the movie was almost over so I wouldn’t have to run from the film doing the pee-pee dance.

On Sunday, I made a quick visit to see Grandma and to run a quick errand near her place before driving back to OC to spend time with my Mom. Mom had been at a friend’s funeral service in the morning and decided to get gas and groceries on the way home. I had intended to extend my cleaning streak to help my Mom around her house, but instead, she asked me for help in making potstickers. From hand chopping the nappa cabbage to folding the potstickers, my Mom let me sit on the living room floor in front of the TV (as I did when I was growing up) and fold a couple of hundred potstickers. (I watched the movie “Clueless” on TBS and then kept flipping back to CNN as they were doing live coverage of the Phoenix Mars lander.) My Mom was taking potstickers as fast as I was making them, and throwing them on to the stove as she was pan-frying them. Yum!

I brought a couple of batches home, foolishly thinking that I’d freeze them and save them for another day but I ended up pan-frying them myself so Yoshi and I could pig out on almost all of them for dinner on Monday night. Yum! Gyoza!

But I skipped something.

After dinner on Sunday, I took my Mom to The Block in Orange to run a quick errand and do a quick walk-through of half the mall. We stopped into Bath & Body Works and tried a bunch of fragrant lotions and stuff. My Mom had the most fun trying on the flavored lip glosses. I tried pink grapefruit. She had fruit punch, which made her lips a bright pink. With glitter. Hilarious and so much fun.

Then we stopped by the house to drop something off and headed off to catch a movie. My Mom wanted to watch “Made of Honor” (since I had described it as a romantic comedy), so that’s what we watched. It wasn’t that great of a movie, but it had its charming moments and Mom was having fun, so I had a good time. It was about 11pm when Made of Honor ended, but Mom wasn’t done yet! We walked out of the theater and she said, “Let’s see another movie!”**

“Mom, there are no movies starting at 11pm on a Sunday night,” I reminded her.

“I don’t have to see the whole movie, let’s go see something that’s already started!” she answered!

Oh yay! I was going to be theater-hopping at midnight with Mom! She headed to “Harold & Kumar,” but not wanting to have to explain any potentially gross humor to my mom, I steered her to the Narnia movie I had already seen the previous night, especially since I knew there was at least an hour of that movie left to go. We walked into as a massive fight scene was happening and since there was no context of what what happening my Mom was confused.

“WHAT is going on here with all these animals fighting?” she asked. I had to explain that the animals were the good guys and the mean looking people were the bad guys. After that, it was all good.

Of course, by the time the movie was over, it was 12:30… way past my bedtime! Instead of going back to L.A., I spent the night in OC at my Mom’s house.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was trying to leave early, but I had accidentally popped the trunk of the car the night before and the car battery died from the little trunk light being on all night. Ooops. Luckily, no one stole any of the Cup-O-Noodles out of the back of my car while it was open all night on the street in front of my parents’ home.

Anyway, I had to go get gas, so while I was out, I stopped by the movie theater and picked up a pair of tickets for my Mom to catch a matinee of the new Indiana Jones movie. I wanted to stay, but wanted to hit the road before the mad long weekend traffic kicked in. I made it home in 35 minutes flat. Nice!

*Through my old job, I have an Annual Pass for movies at AMC Theaters, good for me + 1 through the end of this year. Sadly, the pass I had for 2007 was practically wasted on me because I didn’t have time for movies while I was in school last year. I have resolved to make VERY good use of my pass this year now that I’m done with school and while I still have a pass. I most definitely won’t be getting a pass next year.

**As always, italics means it was in Mandarin.

I am supposed to get on stage in front my Mom on Mother’s Day and I am flipping the heck out.

Published

jozjozjoz

on May 6, 2008

in :: mom ::, b-school and joz = dork

. 13 Comments

So one of the crazy things I got involved with promptly after graduation is this Mother’s Day performance at the Pacific Asia Museum my friend Andrea Apuy is co-directing.

It’s called “Chinese American Stories: My Mother” and since it’s on Mother’s Day, I’ve invited my Mom to see it.

That’s right… I’m getting on stage and telling a story about my mother… with my Mom in the audience! Am I insane!? I feel as nervous as I did in second grade when I was forced to enter speech contests in Chinese School (more like pronunciation contests, because we’d recite poems and stories and stuff; not usually things we wrote ourselves) and had to speak on stage in front of my parents and all the parents of all the other students. Nerve-racking!

Except now I’m doing this supposedly willingly and of my own free will. I blame the decision on the delirium due to lost brain cells during my final semester of MBA school.

Anyway, I’ll be telling a story that has been previously told on this blog, but it’s a story that was meant to be read on the page (or screen, rather), so even though the story was already written, I’ve had to do a lot of “re-working” of this thing.

Oh yeah, there is a also great cast of Chinese Americans who will also share stories for and about their mothers, so it’s not just me who will be up there. (And Taiwanese American Joz will temporarily overlook being lumped in as a Chinese American, for this performance only.)

Here’s the cast listing:
Henry Ong
Judy Soo Hoo
Anna Gee
Marshall Wong
Linda Chong
Ann Lau
(Me)
Denesa Chan
Joyce F Liu
Ewan Chung
Andrea Apuy
Regina Cheng-Sheu
Elbert Traister
Howard Ho

If you come, it would be a great way to spend Mother’s Day afternoon. I suggest brunching in Old Town Pasadena, coming to the Museum and then wandering the Pacific Asia Museum for a bit before the 2pm performance.

Doesn’t that sound like a lovely way to spend an afternoon with Mom?

$Flyer for May 11, 2008, Mother\'s Day performance$

“Chinese American Stories: My Mother”
Sunday, May 11, 2008 from 2-4pm
Mother’s Day Performance
A presentation of community, family and personal memories collected in a writing/oral history workshop by playwright Henry Ong.

Free with museum admission; call 626.449.2742 ext. 31 to RSVP.

Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101

Museum Admission
$7 for adults, $5 for students/seniors

Parking: Free parking is available in museum parking lot, located on corner of Los Robles and Union in Pasadena

Facebook Event Listing

Yelp Event Listing

Upcoming/Yahoo Event Listing

Image and info on Joz’s Flickr

Pimpage on L.A. Metblogs (formerly blogging.la) by Jason Burns

Pimpage on 8Asians by Ernie, who gives away the milk for free

May Day 2008

Published

jozjozjoz

on May 1, 2008

in :: family ::, General and travel

. 4 Comments

Ok, so I’d like to keep playing hooky from writing in my blog because it was nice to be on vacation from it. I know the Twitter posts are short and boring, so I guess I’ll get back into the swing of things by writing something that actually resembles a blog post.

A lot of things have happened since graduation, which was only 2 or 3 weeks ago. I’m still working on my thank you notes and other correspondence.

My social calendar has kept me insanely busy, but I think I need to tone it all down and spend a little more time at home.

Work has been keeping me extremely busy. In fact, I’m sitting at the airport right now, waiting for a flight that is going to take me up to Sacramento for client meetings all day tomorrow.

In other news, my Grandma is in the hospital again. I found out late last night that they took her to the ER, I’m not sure why. I won’t be back in LA until late Friday night, so I won’t be able to visit this weekend.

Well the plane is here, so off I go…

Happy birthday, Daddy.

Published

jozjozjoz

on April 2, 2008

in :: dad :: and :: family ::

. 5 Comments

I love you.

I miss you.

The above photo was taken on April 2, 2006, on my Dad’s 61st birthday.

Today would have been my Dad’s 63rd birthday.

Didn’t do anything. Brain turning into mush.

Published

jozjozjoz

on March 30, 2008

in :: bro ::, travel and yoshi

. 4 Comments

Man.

I should never “do nothing” for too long because a weekend of doing nothing has my head feeling like writing a blog post is heavy lifting. Sad.

I didn’t go to the gym today (wasn’t planning to), but I will be there tomorrow. This “going to the gym” thing is scary. Who am I and what happened to the lazy-assed Joz we all know and love?

I got through almost the whole day without Guitar Hero until I broke down at around 6pm and played for like 40 minutes. But my hand is still all cramped up for all the GH from yesterday, so I was sucking royally and got yelled at by Yoshi to “STOP PLAYING!!! STOOOOPPPP!!!” I took the hint and stopped.

I screwed around online for a while today. I had Facebook scrape my entire Outlook contact list and added about 50 people on Facebook at one shot. They’ve been “approving the adds” all day. Yikes.

What else?

EB and I had a long call today and the long and the short of it is WE ARE GOING TO SAN ANTONIO FOR THE FINAL FOUR AND THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME THIS COMING WEEKEND! GO BRUINS!!! WHOO HOO! I AM SO EXCITED!!!

Ok, I’ll turn my caps lock off now, but YEAH! I’M EXCITED! (Oops. It’s going off now, I mean it this time.)

Thanks to EB for securing the tickets… so EB, Yoshi, my Bro, and I will be heading to the Alamo next weekend to cheer on my boys from Westwood. Yee haw! None of us have ever been to the Final Four and who knows if we’ll ever go again, so this is exciting even though all this travel is taking a huge chunk out of my bank account.

Yoshi is a HUGE basketball fan so this is my present to Yoshi for supporting me through my grad school program for the last couple of years. My brother is having a big birthday next week and this is my birthday present to him. EB has just been wanting to have cool people to go with, and let’s face it, who is cooler than Yoshi and my Bro? (Everyone knows I’m not cool, but people put up with me because all my friends are cool.) Oh, and I just love my alma mater, so we all have different reasons to be excited.

Have I mention that I’m excited? I may have forgotten to slip that in this post, so I just thought I’d put it in here, just so it’s perfectly clear that I’m excited.

It has been well over a decade (almost two) since I was last in San Antonio. Maybe if I can find some old pictures of myself at the Alamo, I will try to recreate them when I’m there.

More about this trip later, I’m sure. (Here’s my dopplr listing)

Elections in Taiwan. Joz is watching.

Published

jozjozjoz

on March 20, 2008

in :: dad ::, :: family :: and :: mom ::

. 8 Comments

Does that sound ominous enough for you?

Just kidding. I just made a post at 8Asians regarding the phenomenon of Taiwanese Americans traveling back to Taiwan to vote in their presidential elections.

In case you have forgotten, my Mom has been in Taiwan since the end of February and will be there through the end of this month. She did have to go back for other reasons, but she is also there to vote.

For kicks, I searched the term “Taiwan” on my own blog and was surprised at all the times I had mentioned it. Most of the references are in passing about one or both of my parents being in/calling from Taiwan.

Here are a couple of posts I had completely forgotten I had written about. Reading them takes me back to a time when my heart wasn’t broken for losing my Dad as well as how frustrated I used to get while dealing with him.

The guilt factor.
This post is interesting because I distinctly remember some of these phone calls I was getting from Dad and I remember writing this post the way I did as a way for me (secretly) remind myself of a specific “fight” I had on the phone with Dad. I am not going to get into the details of this fight, but I recently thought about this fight and was chilled about what we had argued about.

I love my Mom & Dad…. and some Taiwanese political stuff
This is one of the few times I wrote about my parents’ direct involvement in Taiwanese politics. I am still so proud of everything they fought for, everything they stand for, everything they taught me to be proud of.

I survived Day 2 at the new gig and didn’t get fired.

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 29, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General and travel

. 4 Comments

Hooray for the little things, eh?

Last night I got hit with a horrible migraine. It actually started in the afternoon of my first day at the new gig, but I held it together pretty well until I asked Bossdude (pay attention: this is not the same person as BossMan or Bossguy, this is my newest boss: Bossdude!) if he had aspirin over dinner.

I made it home just in time to get sick, show off my new laptop to my Bro, and then promptly pass out in bed at the late hour of 8:30pm. I did not wake up until 10 hours later: 6:30am when Bro was leaving for work and he made sure I got up to get ready for work. My Bro rules!

It was really bad that I slept for 10 hours, not just because I wasn’t feeling well. Mostly, I was expecting to get 5 hours of (school) work done and instead, I got none done. Bad.

I wasn’t feeling too great after getting home (well, my OC home) from work today either, so I had to take a nap before having dinner. My Mom is the bestest and made the yummiest food while I was in OC. I wish I had more of an appetite, though. I also had to apologize for treating her place like a hotel the last couple of nights. I basically just came home, ate, slept, and had maid service. Not cool of me.

I also had to drive back to LA to get back to my real home (with Yoshi) tonight.

Anyway, I am going to be up for a bit tonight and then I’m going to get up early so I can get to my 7:30am doctor’s appointment before work tomorrow.

Whew! This is a nutso week!

Sorry if I don’t check in for a bit, but obviously, I’m totally crazy busy!

Oh yes, FYI, I will be going to Vegas to work this weekend. Not for the new Bossdude but for an old client I do bookkeeping for. As if I didn’t have anything else to worry about, right?!??!

Random thoughts at 4am

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 27, 2008

in 8Asians, :: bro ::, :: family ::, :: mom :: and General

. 2 Comments

-I just made a post at 8Asians.com entitled: Let’s talk about sex. I wonder who all is going to check THAT post out.

-Chatted with Bobo today. Two of her daughters are having health issues. I’m thinking of them. I also found out that one of the daughters knows me as “Aunt I Don’t Remember Her Name.” Haha, cute. At least she calls me “Aunt.”

-It rained for much of the day. Did some rainy day reading and read something that really moved me.

-Chatted with JJ for a while and kept him up way past his bedtime. He’s known me for so long and can see right through when I’m putting up a front. He’s such a good friend and I love him to bits.

-There is some strange beeping outside that hasn’t stopped for at least 15 minutes. I wonder if it’ll stop before I finish this post.

-I went to the post office today in Hollywood and my crowd gathering disease kicked in. My Mom and I have this weird power where we can walk into a room/store/whatever that is basically empty except for us and then be totally and completely crowded when we leave. I showed up at the post office and there was only one person ahead of me. When I left, there were at least 20 people in line. (Yoshi can vouch for the existence of this power. Unfortunately, I have not figured out how to control this power and use it to fight evil yet.)

-Spontaneously decided to go get a mani/pedi as a treat for starting the new gig. My fingers have been frenched. My toes are hot-pinkified.

-Yoshi was gone all day and I was home alone for most of the day. Yoshi had to drive back in the rain and had a migraine after getting home. We got into bed and snuggled. And so that we could be in bed together, I turned on my laptop to work in bed instead of at my desktop in the other room.

-I love chatting with Akrypti. She’s the bestest.

-Tons to do this weekend. Tomorrow I’m off to OC for a few days. Yes, a few days. I’ll be staying with Mom and Bro.

-OMG the beeping has not stopped. But the heater has turned on so I can’t hear the beeping as much.

Yes, I do have a lot of that. (But no comment on the other thing.)

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 19, 2008

in :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General, b-school, joz = dork and joz = weirdo magnet

. 10 Comments

So I was awakened not too long ago by my Mom’s friend RH (indeed, a really close family friend), who is helping us with a few things. When we talk it’s usually a frenetic conversation in Chinglish– both Chinese and English– depending on the topic.

When we were done talking shop, she asked me how I was doing because I haven’t seen her for a while and she mentioned that she saw a recent picture of me and noticed that I had gained some weight since I last saw her. (Ahhh, there’s nothing like the blunt, tactless commentary that you’ll get from a close Taiwanese/Chinese lady friend. If it wasn’t absolutely true and obvious, I probably would have been pretty mad. Besides, it “comes from a good place,” just like it does when my Mom says similar things. Although after all these years of carping about my weight, my Mom has finally stopped with the fat comments.)

The last time RH and I spent any time together was when my father was in the hospital. It has been about a year and a half since that time and I am not proud to say that I’ve gained something like 30 lbs since then.

I blame it on a combination of not eating right (my fault), not exercising (my fault) and possibly a bit of the way my body is (always had trouble with weight regulation, not my fault, but this is probably the factor I have the least control over and that I blame the least for my weight gain).

In the last two years, I have been working a full-time job + going to school full-time + lost my Dad and taken on a lot of family responsibility + learning how to deal with the grief of losing such a close loved one. Oh yeah, I don’t get a heck of a lot of sleep, either.

The first two things alone (work + school) was enough to derail me a little bit from a relatively decent (not-quite-healthy-but-not-so-bad lifestyle), but the combination of all those things above really put me in a tailspin. I have been running around for a long time, not thinking about what I am putting into my body, not doing too much exercise, and definitely not sleeping enough to give myself the rest I so desperately need all the time.

Ok, all that said, what does the title of my post mean?

So RH was asking me why I had gained so much weight so quickly. She was concerned about health issues, like did I have some sort of weird immunological disease or something. I told her I didn’t think so and just said that I wasn’t really taking care of myself or exercising, etc. She asked me a bunch more questions (Had I been to the doctor? What did they say? etc) and I answered them half-heartedly.

Then she asked me something that got my attention.

RH: “DO YOU HAVE A LOT OF SEX?” (in English)

“WHAT?!” I asked in Chinese, really shocked by the mention of the subject. (I do NOT talk to my Mom about such things, so I am not going to go talking to her close friend about stuff like this. As far as my Mom likes to believe, I don’t even know what sex is and I’m not planning on changing that perception for a while!)

RH: “I said, ‘Do you have a lot of sex?’” (she repeated in English)

Joz: …

I sat there dumbfounded in silence, which is pretty damn unusual for me. What the hell is she bringing this up for?! What the hell am I going to say?! How do I change the topic!?!?! Arrrrgh! So embarrassing!

Since I didn’t answer for a bit (maybe like 10 seconds, which is an eternity, especially for a blabbermouth like me), she asked the question again:

RH: “Did you hear what I asked?” (in Chinese)
RH: “Do you have a lot of PRESSURE on you?” (in English.)

Joz: “Pressure?” (in English)

RH: “Yes, pressure. STRESS. Do you have a lot of STRESS?” (in English)

OMG! She was asking me about STRESS, not SEX! Thank god!

Joz: “Pressure? Oh yeah, I have lots of that. You know that.”

RH: “You shouldn’t worry so much, try to relax and not to take on so much pressure. It’s not good for your body.” (in Chinese)

Joz: “Yeah, I know.” (Joz changes the subject quickly)

So to recap…

Yes, I do have a lot of that. STRESS

(But no comment on the other thing.) SEX

Oh gawd I love these Chinglish conversations.

PS - The last few days excepted, I have been eating better and have dropped 8-10 lbs since the beginning of the year. I’m working on it. Really, I am.

Crazy busy weekend

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 13, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General and yoshi

. 3 Comments

My weekends always seem to be jam-packed these days.

I honestly can’t even remember as far back as Friday. What did I do Friday night? I have no recollection! Oh wait… I do remember one thing.

Earlier in the week, Mom & I had talked on the phone about my plans for the weekend. Since I hadn’t been back to OC since Thanksgiving, she said she needed me to come visit and help her with a few things. I mentioned that I might have to work on Sunday (she had something written down that reminded us both that I was indeed supposed to be working on Sunday) so I told her I would plan to be there on Saturday.

Well late Friday night, my Mom called me to say that she was looking forward to seeing me on Sunday. WHAT?!?!? I was like, “Mom, weren’t YOU the one who reminded ME that I needed to work on Sunday?” She was like, “Are you sure? I just made plans for Saturday afternoon with some friends and can’t cancel them now.” !!!

I told her that I would still go back on Saturday, even if she wouldn’t be around as long as my Bro was around (so he and I could do stuff). Then she started trying to talk me into not going back at all. I told her we could talk about in the morning.

The next morning, my Mom called me up at 7:30am (on a SATURDAY!?!) to wake me up because she wanted me to go back to OC early so we could maximize our time together. While this was a wonderful idea, I WAS TIRED! + I WAS STILL SLEEPING! = GRUMPY JOZ! And I was not going to pay attention to anything she said to me at that hour. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get back to sleep after the call, so I futzed around the house and was looking for a few things I needed to take back to OC, including several years worth of recycling (aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and glass).

Lucky for me, Yoshi didn’t mind spending the day with me in OC and tagged along. It was a good thing, too, because I was so focused on driving that I wasn’t listening to the traffic report on the radio. There was a big fire on the 5 and thanks to Yoshi’s attentive listening skills, we were able to take a detour and avoid this scene.

Bro and I took all the recycling to the recycle yard and got $139.71 back in cash for it! We also ran errands which involved going to get gas from Costco, picking up movie tickets from the AMC next door, as well as swinging by the PO Box to get my ABSENTEE BALLOT for the February 5 primary. Whoo! The rest of the day Saturday was spent at the house: eating, doing paperwork, napping, and trying to keep warm.

Late that night, all 3 of us we headed back to LA where we continued to stay up even later, doing stuff at my place. Sheesh.

Sunday morning, I could not wake myself up early enough to do the remaining paperwork I still had left to do. I did drop Bro off at his gf’s place and then went off to work, as planned.

Around noonish, my Mom called my cell phone: “Are you awake? Did I wake you up?”

“Actually, Mom,” I said in Chinese, “I’ve been up for several hours now and am already at work. Did you forget that I have to work today?!” We talked about a few more things and I got off the phone.

Unfortunately, several clients overhead me speaking to my Mom and they cornered me. “I didn’t know you could speak Chinese! I didn’t know you could speak it so well! If I had known, I would have asked you about _____!”

ARRRRGH! This is why I pretend not to speak Chinese there! I don’t get paid enough to do to client service and hand-holding for the Chinese-speaking people there! I am supposed to go there, push a bunch of buttons, yell a little, and go off on my merry way! Anyway, it was nice to get some validation that my Chinese skills haven’t totally eluded me, but still.

I got home from work a little earlier than expected, but then had to finish the paperwork that I had put off from earlier in the day.

I was also distracted by the NEW COMPUTER that my brother had given me for my birthday (several months ago) and that he set up for me the previous night. Of course, I was so frustrated by not having everything on the new computer the way I wanted it that I started throwing things and grumbling like crazy.

It was late and I totally needed to go to sleep.

Can I have another weekend to recover from my weekend?

In a funk, but that changed

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 9, 2008

in :: bro ::, :: mom :: and General

. 4 Comments

I woke up in a funk this morning. I don’t know how to explain it.

I worked from home all morning until I got a mini-migraine and had to stop. Consequently, I took a nap and ended up going to the office in the evening, staying really late working on a bunch of things that have been hanging over my head.

I talked to both Bro and Mom today and they reminded me that we had a bunch of things that needed to be taken care of in really short order. Yikes! Vacation is DEFINITELY over!

Mom also reminded me that she has to go back to Taiwan this year, before March to vote in the Taiwanese presidential elections. I have a feeling she’ll stay in Taiwan for a while after that. Doh. I like having her here.

On the bright side, I got some really good news today. Getting that news got me out of the funk I was in this morning. For those of you I’m closest with, you already know this news. The rest of you will have to wait.

I’ll give you a hint of what the news is NOT (since every time I mention good news this seems to be the guess)… I am

NOT

expecting a baby!

NOTE TO SHARKY: I cannot believe this is the first thing you guessed when I said I had “good news” share! I still think you and Doetzi should “split” the responsibilities, though.

Being sick sucks. Luckily I’m much better now.

Published

jozjozjoz

on January 6, 2008

in :: family ::, :: mom :: and General

. 3 Comments

I’m not quite 100% but I feel a heck of a lot better today than I have for the last couple of days.

This cold thing really kicked my butt and I’m glad it’s only taken me a couple of days to get over it. Tomorrow I go back to work. Bleh.

Unfortunately, my being Ms Sicky all weekend has gotten in the way of my many weekend plans which included seeing Teebubble & JeniJeniJeni, going back to OC to visit my Mom, and of course to visit my Grandma (which I absolutely won’t do until I am germless).

I also had crapload of paperwork to do, some of which I made a dent in yesterday, but most of which is still piled on my desk. I thought about working on it today, but lying in bed and keeping warm sounded more appealing… so guess what I’m doing now?

Tonight we are supposed to have dinner with L & S which is great because I haven’t seen either of them in ages.

Does that mean I actually have to leave the house then?

New Year’s Eve with Kōhaku

Published

jozjozjoz

on December 31, 2007

in 8Asians, :: family ::, General and travel

. 3 Comments

NHK Red & White Song Festival 2008 As a kid, most of my New Year’s Eve memories involved having dinner (hot pot) at my grandparents home with the extended family and close friends. After dinner, the adults would drink tea (or sake) and sit around the table while talking. In the background, the TV would be blaring TV from NHK Japan: Kōhaku Uta Gassen or the Red White Song Battle (or Song Contest or Song Festival).

My family is from Taiwan, but due to the history of Japanese occupation there, my grandparents and parents learned to speak (and read/write) Japanese. So my personal New Year’s memories are a mix of Taiwanese and Japanese… with the Japanese coming from Kōhaku.

According to Wikipedia:

Kōhaku Uta Gassen, more commonly known as simply Kōhaku, is an annual music show on the New Year’s Eve produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK and broadcast on both television and radio, nationally and internationally by NHK’s networks and some overseas (mainly cable) broadcasters which bought the program. The show ends shortly before midnight (when NHK switches to a frenzy of “Happy New Year” greetings from around the nation).

Literally “Red and White Song Battle,” the program divides the most popular music artists of the year into competing teams of red and white. The “red” team or akagumi is composed of all female artists (or groups with female vocals), while the “white” team or shirogumi is all male (or groups with male vocals). The honor of performing on Kōhaku is strictly by invitation, so only the most successful J-Pop artists and enka singers can perform. In addition to the actual music performances, the costumes, hair-styles, makeup, dancing, and lighting are also important. Even today, a performance on Kōhaku is said to be a big highlight in a singer’s career because of the show’s large reach.

While I don’t keep up with J-pop or really anything Japanese for most of the year, I always like to turn on the TV and have some Red White Song battling on to make it feel like New Year’s Eve with my family. And on the final night of 2007, I am happy to be staying in J-Town in SF with Kōhaku on the TV while waiting to meet some good friends from 8Asians and others for dinner.

May you ring in the New Year happily and safely!

Going back to work sucks.

Published

jozjozjoz

on December 20, 2007

in :: mom ::, General and yoshi

. 7 Comments

I had to be in the office by 6:45am to get ready for a 7am conference call/webex/training session when I went back to work on Wednesday.

That training session lasted until almost 1pm with only a couple of short breaks.

I can’t believe how quickly my calendar is filling up from now until the end of the year. Yikes!

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Since I am really bad at buying Christmas gifts, I decided my present to Yoshi and my Mom would be to take them out for a nice concert. I had heard that Chanticleer was going to be in LA and performing a Christmas concert at Disney Hall.

We had dinner in Little Tokyo at Usui and despite a little rain, it was a lovely night on Tuesday night.

The Chanticleer concert was very enjoyable, a full house… we ran into at least 3 different people that we knew but didn’t know were coming in our section alone.

And the celeb sighting of the night? Gedde Watanabe sat exactly 3 rows in front of me. It’s kind of funny because this is probably the third of fourth time I’ve gone to a public event where Gedde was seated next to/near me.

Because it was raining so hard, Mom spent the night and was still asleep when I left the house to go to work at 6:30 in morning.

Glad we got to spend the time together, but sucked that I had to be up and out the door so early.

I have a new job: My Mom’s publicist.

Published

jozjozjoz

on December 18, 2007

in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom :: and General

. 6 Comments

Ok, so it’s not really a new job.

But in the last two weeks, I have booked my Mom a newspaper interview, a TV interview, and a radio interview.

It’s been a year and a half since my Dad passed away and last year was an extremely tough holiday season. It’s still hard, but this year has been better because Mom’s back from Taiwan and we are planning to spend the holidays together.

One of the things we have been doing together is volunteering for One Legacy/Donate Life. At the time that it was all going on, I didn’t want to talk about it very much but our family made the decision to honor my father’s wishes to donate all my father’s organs and tissues so that our loss could possibly help another family in crisis. One of the things we stipulated is that we not want to know who the recipients were: even though some families don’t feel this way, to us a donation is a donation and we felt that the compassionate thing to do was to try and help someone else if we could.

The One Legacy/Donate Life folks have been absolutely wonderful and caring with us. They were so appreciative of the decision and have been following our family with kindness and caring, knowing that it was so hard to lose someone we loved so much. Throughout the past year, they have had many memorial events for organ donor families where we have met other families who have gone through similar situations as we have.

One of the things that has become a little easier to do over time is to talk about it. Whereas we were extremely private about our decision at the time that we made it, especially in this time of year of giving, we think about the gift that my father was able to give as an organ and tissue donor.

Did you know an organ donation could save the lives of eight people, and a tissue donation could enhance the lives of another 50 people? (If you are in California and want to find out more about how to sign up online to be an organ and tissue donor, visit http://www.donatelifecalifornia.org/)

Joz decorates the 2008 Donate Life Rose Parade float

A few weeks ago, the One Legacy/Donate Life folks asked us to participate in the decoration of their annual Rose Parade Float. On this date, the “Ambassador” families (of those donors featured on the float) came to decorate the portraits of their loved ones. In some cases, donor families were introduced with recipient families: a very moving scene.

My Mom and I went down to Pasadena to volunteer our time toward the float and to also do a newspaper interview with the World Journal (Chinese Daily News). The interview and article was in Chinese, but it was published in the Sunday paper the next day. If you’re interested, here is the link to the article and picture of us (good luck translating it: Babelfish didn’t do a great job): http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-la-news.php?nt_seq_id=1632716

On the same day, my Mom was asked to give an a TV interview (I don’t know which media outlet interviewed her; I just saw cameras pointed at her) and also to say some things on camera, possibly to be used for a public service announcement. We’ll see if that airs anywhere at some point in the future.

While I was in NYC, I got a call that the Los Angeles Chinese radio station, KAZN 1300AM 中文廣播電台 was going to do a piece on organ donation and wanted a donor family to speak along with a couple of recipient families. Since I was supposed to be in NYC at the time, I suggested that they interview my Mom for the piece instead.

Last night, the radio segment aired and everyone said she did a great job telling the story of my father and our decision to donate. Lots of people have called her, including my Uncle Peter and various friends who just happened to hear her on the air. They said that she really touched them with our story and were inspired by my father’s noble and compassionate act to consent to being a donor and by our family’s decision to support that.

I am so proud of my mother for giving voice to such an important cause and for being brave enough to talk about her loss and our father so publicly in the hopes of helping save more lives.

She is an amazing woman and I love her so much.

Crazy weekend

Published

jozjozjoz

on November 12, 2007

in :: family ::, General, b-school and food

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It’s been a crazy weekend. I definitely did not have any time to rest up as I needed, but I knew that going in…

On Friday afternoon, I had to be on the Westside to begin a 1-1/2 day “simulation weekend” for school. Basically, there were 5 teams of 6 people who were competing in this computerized simulation where each team was managing a corporation that sold a similar product (in our case it was disposable cameras).

When my team was formed a few months ago, I became the CEO of our imaginary company. Before this simulation, our team had to write a 15 page paper outlining the strategy of our company and our plans in running it. We came up with a strategy which we all agreed to stick with, no matter what.

Luckily, my team was filled with amazing people. I ended up having a wonderful time and despite a few bumps and hiccups along the way, we all got along for the most part and weren’t adversarial or argumentative. Evidently, this was unusual as the other teams reported fighting, etc.

Throughout the two days, but especially on Saturday, our team was visited by 5 different professors (who were acting as members of our Board of Directors) who would come in and question what we were doing.

Also, between Friday night and Saturday morning, we were given an assignment to come up with two marketing campaigns in a mini-competition to gain a competitive advantage that would be factored into the game. Therefore, I stayed up for most of the night Friday night (I slept for about two hours) working on a campaign which ended up tying for second place. (Yay! Better than nothing!)

Anyway, by the end of the long day on Saturday, our corporation ended up winning the simulation by a long shot. Out company was in first place by almost every measure. It was a really good feeling to do so well and I have to give credit to my teammates for pulling through in their decisions.

Other than the temporary pride of winning the simulation, we don’t even get graded on the class (it’s pass/no pass), but it was still cool to win.

After getting home on Saturday night, I sat down on the couch and fell asleep (fully clothed and with my contacts in again) and didn’t wake up until 7am when I decided it was too cold to be sleeping on the couch and finally went to bed until 10am.

When I woke up on Sunday, I had a zillion things to do because I had to get my stuff together in order to be out of the house for a couple of days. I recently got my second promotion in 3 months and my new-new boss was coming into Newport Beach from Florida for a week long strategic leadership meeting with my old-new boss (her new boss). My old-new boss said that I should come down and meet my new-new boss for dinner on Sunday and spend the night at the hotel so I could meet with her early in the morning without having to brave traffic. Since tomorrow is a holiday, Yoshi was able to join me and we took a leisurely drive down to OC, stopping briefly at my parents house, and then on down to the hotel.

We had a late lunch at Fashion Island and then we went back up to the room when I was able to take a quick nap before heading down to have a nice dinner with my new-new boss. We ended up having a lovely dinner at Roy’s, a wonderful “Hawaiian Fusion” restaurant. I had the baby wedge salad to start, then the Classic Trio: Hibachi Grilled Salmon (Citrus Ponzu Sauce), Blackened Island Ahi (Spicy Soy Mustard Buttter, Sizzling Soy Vinaigrette), & Hawaiian Style Misoyaki Butterfish. As if that wasn’t enough, we shared a warm Macadamia & Almond Caramel Tart Baked in a Shortbread Crust served à la Mode.. Yum-my!

Anyway, after that I had to get a bunch of work done and now that it’s 2am, I’m finally getting a moment to blog about my busy weekend. I knew this was coming, so I am very glad I took Friday morning to visit Grandma in the hospital, especially because it turned out she had moved to a private room to get more care. I guess her condition worsened a bit, so here’s hoping that the weekend has been good to her since I won’t be able to get out there until Tuesday night after class.

I can’t wait for this semester to end (second week of December). For some reason my workload this term has seemed torturous, but with the Simulation weekend over, that’s a big load off my back. The next couple of weeks are going to be tough and I’m hoping I can squeeze in the time to see Grandma despite it all.

“Trick-or-Treat Goodies (our way)” - Fourth time around

Published

jozjozjoz

on October 31, 2007

in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General, b-school, food, i love la and