dangerous.

11:16 PM





Helping Hands

11:57 PM

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” - Rumi

And, I feel, how blessed are we to be able to meet in this lifetime.

I'd like to share with you guys an amazing organization called Helping Hands. Their mission is simple: To raise awareness of the needs of our community by connecting & inspiring people to make a positive impact through music, arts, and events.

I met up with Joe, Jennie and Jacob from the organization for dinner to find out what they were about, to feed off their positive energy and to put our heads together to see how we can help each other. To be in the presence of such motivated and benevolent individuals-- I walked away brimming with hope.

It's great to know that there are others out there who just want to help. They don't care to make a name for themselves or a profit--they just want to make a difference.

We all had one thing in common; a passion to help, no matter the cost. I hope through what we do, we can facilitate that love and compassion.

Great things to come...

starried eye surprise

11:36 PM
The very last thing I want to do after a long day of work and meetings and traffic is write. But I must.

Lately I have been all about going against my laziest urges. And since I've been home at 9PM today, all I've wanted to do is soak in the tub, but work more I must. I must tell you about what keeps me going. what drive me. us.

We must do the things we dread (like work) or else we will drown in the depression of our own idleness.

I was awe stricken, like a child, when I arrived at the Capital Breast Care Center (CBCC). I met with Susannah Fox, Director of Development of the clinic. She was so excited about the event and so happy to have us help them out. Their mission is to provide breast cancer screening services to those who cannot afford them. So when a patient comes in and is not covered under conventional insurance, the center has to pay for their diagnostics which can cost from $2,000 to $10,000 a person.

Susannah showed me their Mammography room and explained to me how just this past summer, they were able to finally upgrade to a digital scanning system. Before, they were working with an analogue machine which uses film, which required a technician on-site to develop the film in a dark room and would take weeks before patients would get their results. How archaic for 2009, but this is what they had to deal with. Someone finally was able to donate a refurbished digital machine to the CBCC last summer.

My meeting today reaffirmed and strengthened my commitment to this cause. This center is providing a service that is priceless; helping those who cannot afford it. Breast cancer effects everyone, and now just about everyone in the DC area can get diagnosed thanks to the CBCC.

So far, they have been able to diagnose breast cancer at twice the national average. This is because the demographic that they serve (those of extremely low income), are usually not accounted for in the breast cancer statistics that you hear about.

I came back revitalized and more committed than ever to help. And I am grateful to be able to lend a hand where I can.


mornings hate me

11:32 AM
if i get less than 6 hours of sleep, my body temperature rises to a feverish level, verging on hot flash for old ladies. this morning was such a morning. i woke up from 2.5 hours of sleep, my body overheating. and after making my early morning appointment and returning home, i find myself unable to sleep, but rather, tackling backlogged errands that I've just never gotten around to.

like resetting my frequent flier mile password for AirTran and Southwest, and United. (Random, right?) and making checks out to the city for parking tickets--they've made a profit of $250 from me since last November. lets hope it goes into inner-city community reconstruction or something. All the while, i have been on hold with my insurance company for about an hour.

this no sleep thing, its like a coffee-high without the caffeine. I feel wired as if I've had 2 cups. I'm shaking my feet in some sort of anxiety and impatience, but I feel like I'm getting so much done! is your health a good trade-off for productivity?

One day they shall invent a sleep suppressor (if they haven't already), and we will have 16 hour work days, rather than 8.

and we will never have to sleep again, except maybe 2 weeks out of the year, like your alloted paid-vacation days.

we will be supremely productive, the world will move at a faster pace, our youths will enter the rat race at adolescence instead of post-college, yet our to-do list will forever endlessly grow bigger and bigger by the minute and we will still struggle to catch up no matter how many hours we stay late at work.

i need to get out of the corporate world.


My Blog: An Iphone App?

12:11 PM

my 5 readers out there just jumping with excitement. okay fine, 3.

Oh my Goodness!! A POP-UP book!!!!

10:38 PM




My heart is skipping with delight.
As if I was not in love The Little Prince enough already, I came across this post on our.city.lights.
Her hubby got her a pop-up version of the book!
I don't think I shall ever outgrow a good pop-up book. Ever.

So my dear lover, if you happen to be reading this right now; hint hint hint! And a little girl pout.

Click here to see images from our.city.lights.




O

4:28 PM

Discovered the most scintillating little treat today:



The synopsis inside the book reads:
The classic erotic novel, THE STORY OF O relates the love of a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer for Rene. As part of that intense love, she demands debasement and severe sexual and pychological tests. It is a unique work not to be missed.

promise

12:04 PM




After February, when the event is over. I shall pick up a camera, paint brush, and my books. for the sake of my sanity and intellect. for the sake of my own well being.





Hana Relief for Haiti

10:34 PM

"First Spring" by Yang Fudong for Prada's 2010S/S men's collection

9:59 PM

It's a beautiful piece of work, but it test my patience. I am too unrefined for these sorts "art form" in which everything and nothing is implied, where to ask for a cohesive plot would be to ask the director to use his brain. It's too easy to make an ambiguously empty film and call it art. And then leave it up to the viewer to interpret this blank canvas into a logical story. One shouldn't have to rack their brains to make sense of a movie. If I wanted my brain to work, I'd read a book.

Nonetheless, the actual collection is beautiful and already looks classic. Every piece looks like a staple that my lover needs in his closet.

And speaking of the lover and his closet, for his upcoming birthday I gifted him his first pair of Prada loafers. I was dumbfounded at how he could work and live in the financial district and not even own a quality pair of loafers. But lo, we say, that is where the girlfriend comes in.

I'll fix you up right baby. Just don't be ambiguous or you'll get a mouthful.


happiest rebirth

11:08 PM

and i find myself writing this 13 days into the new years. my apologies for neglecting this blog, but so far, every hour of my day--my life--is delegated to a task at hand; be it the task of running a fundraiser (we got the wife of the DC mayor to be guest of honor--yay), personal needs, friends, family, traveling, working out or work, work work...and then if there's time left over, I get to sleep.

some days i feel driven. i plow through my to-do list with ease and enthusiasm. but today I feel extremely overwhelmed. the to-do list i make for myself is getting heavier, weighing me down and i feel it particularly heavy on my shoulders tonight.

but its a new year and this is supposed to be a positive post, on a bad day. i am doing something bigger than my little body thought it was capable of. and some days i feel great, but some days the fear seeps in. the ambitions that you set for yourself seems daunting and you hope to not ever let yourself down.

that's my resolution this year. others will let you down. they always will, but don't ever let yourself down. it's the only thing you can control; yourself.

this new year starts with a whole new to-read list, and I got this from one of my favorite blogs:

extremely loud & incredibly close - jonathan safran foer [have need to finish]
on the road - jack kerouac
the great gatsby - f. scott fitzgerald [need to re-read]
middlesex - jeffrey eugenides
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time - mark haddon
a wild sheep chase - haruki murakami
kafka on the shore - haruki murakami
factotum - charles bukowski
stardust - neil gaiman [re-read]
sputnik sweetheart - haruki murakami
candy - kevin brooks
atonement - ian mcewan
gut symmetries - jeanette winterson
alice in wonderland and through the looking glass - lewis carroll
the book of laughter and forgetting - milan kundera
after the quake - haruki murakami
the time traveler’s wife - audrey niffenegger
girlfriend in a coma - douglas coupland

we live very short lives if we think about time in terms of decades and millenniums. our time on earth is very short compared to the stars and the tallest trees in the biggest forest. today i feel small.

tomorrow perhaps I'll feel bigger.