i'm back~

chicago was fun, it was mostly eating, shopping, and general winterness.
it snowed a lot when we were there, but i also heard that houston had some snow too...:T ah whatever. white christmases are really pretty, but ya it gets all wet like all the time and it's cold and I had my retarded ski jacket which is SUPER out of fashion and makes me look fat :T

We hung out with our cousins a lot, watched their cable tv and movies, shopping, and played mahjong. And BUTTLOADS of eating. omg. i'm scared to weigh myself, must have gotten so fat.

Shopping areas:
- a mall (got a jacket from aero for $30 that i really like :D)
- tjmax/nordstrom rack sort of place (got some converse hitops and some flannel shirt)
- premium outlets (lots of shirts, skinny purple jeans for $10, a cool beanie! ah but i lost my hat that i brought there T_T so sad...that was depressing when i found out.)

Food:
- dim sum
- soup noodles or congee
- general chinese food dishes, mostly seafood sorts like lobster and shrimp
- pho
- italian food (buca's) and we pretended my birthday just past, so some cake
- random korean food
- all you can eat hot pot
- Garrett's Popcorn. a lot of it. it was pretty good.

Movies we watched:
- Return of the King
- Chronicles of Narnia
- The Pianist
- Just Friends
- He's just not that into you
- Tropic Thunder
- White Chicks
- PS I love you (well, the end of it. SPARTAAAA)
- Mama Mia (the worst movie imho. so random, i don't think i could handle it.)
- part of Speed
- The Rocker
i'm sure we watched more, but i can't remember...gah cable TV

so

like the most important project of the year for me happened today....

to elaborate, my bosses were interesting in shooting a video for the new website layout. THis is mostly for a fashiony feel without having to really intergrate Flash into the website to make it look flashy. Since I'm the known Film major in the company, they asked me to do it.

Essentially the project was to create a runway-look/feel set, and edit together a video.

We had 3 attempts to get at really what the head boss wanted...so technically i've had a LOT of prep time, and i spent very little/no money on it, which of course pleases the boss. Today was the big day, and i got to work around 8:15 AM to get ready...

Unfortunately, because of hair/makeup, we ended up nearly an hour late from the get go, and also we had a HUGE miscalculation in how many dresses we could do. 5 minutes per dress =/= 30 dresses in an hour. more like 12. oops.
Luckily, they had orginally planned for 15 min per dress, and 3 hours per girl, so 17 dresses each were set up (still over shooting the hour, but, whatever) so we managed to squeeze in everything with only going with a little overtime for the models. which i may as well mention, are really pretty.

only big issue we had was with the little lights that lit up these glass scuplutures for a really nice effect-- the connection/batteries were always a mess. Also me and erick (in-house graphic designer who does the new website and after effects and suggested the videos in the first place...he was the 2nd cameraman) didn't have much time to sit down or relax (like ever) so now I limp...>.< ow! the pain..

..and work tomorrow too. phew.

been MIA from xanga for a bit...

this week was CRAZY @_@ but i got a LOT of sleep, haha.

Tuesday - I went to walmart to buy stuff for the potluck at work as well as for my church's 'Food Street'...a bunch of booths at our church serving food, our fellowship (I guess now officially the ECC: English College and Career) were going to make green onion pancake.) But then I went home and baked cookies for work potluck, and then later went to Barnes & Noble/Natalies to hang out and try and write my essay.

Wednesday - Work potluck was good~~ and we got to leave early too. But work is thinking of doing videos for their websites, with me as director/managing it, so... this is probably the most important 'film' related thing that would have done, so i'm a bit nervous, and rusty ("what's...those...canned lights...called...) so hopefully it'll go well >.<
At home we had a family early thanksgiving of Hotpot..delicious as always. We talked about things we're thankful for, and my list:
1) My job. cuz it's hard economy...
2) That my mom let me have a cat, and it's all going good :) I really enjoy having her, plus I'm glad my family has seem to grow to like it (well, mebe not Ryan, he thinks she's kinda loud and just likes to scare her, but he usually isn't bothered)
3) For the ECC...when a lot of kids from our church go to college, it was really difficult for them to end up returning (to church, in general, but a lot of college grads had recently went back to houston to work, and still weren't going to church) However, we worked out our schedule of the ECC and recently ppl have been participating, which is really exciting for me, personally, because we're all awesome old friends and it'll be sad to lose touch with each other and with our spirituality. Now to find a bible study...
4) I'm starting to like myself better, as a person...it's still difficult to always not compare, but i'm working towards it *haha, emoness*

Thursday - Was woken up early by ECC to go volunteer -_- I kinda didn't want to, cuz, well, i was tired (woke up at 6 am) and we went to the GRB, but GO FIGURE there's too many volunteers, and since the actual serving hadn't started, volunteers were just standing around, and the sections we wandered near kept like going "we're too full, sorry please go somewhere else" so we ended up leaving after refolding some clothes -_- uber lame. Went home to sleep, then woke up to start prep for thanksgiving dinner. Rachelle bought me stuffing mix to make, and I helped her with the spiced/herbed potatoes and brocoli. Ryan was doing some cranberry receipe, and Gloria made green bean casserole. We went to Kelly's house for the "7 princesses" gathering...haha...old school SWCBC girls together: Kelly, Rosalie, Melinda, Sophia, Monica, Rachelle, Me, plus Charlene, Cheryl, and Gloria...and kevin and ryan and alan (sophia's bf) This year was 'momentous' because the kids got the adult table and the adults ate at the kid table. SOOOO MUCH GOOD FOOD...i really liked Kelly's sweet potatoes, the salad (I think auntie evelyns), and the green bean casserole the best...and then I got to have fun blowtorching monica's creme brulee, and of course sophia's bread pudding was good.
We just talked about old times, (sophia and kelly were such bad kids! terrible~~) and it was a lotta fun. Got stuffed.

Friday - SLEPT IN AND NO BLACK FRIDAY, haha.
I woke up to...i ferget...eat lunch, i dunno. I can't remember the first half of this day.
around 7:00 the ECC came over (the girls only...lame boys. -_- why can't they learn to pull some weight? jk...kinda) and we worked on prep for the green onion pancake...it was a lot of hard work, honestly, and we didn't finish all of it, but that was cool...plus rosalie helped me make a banner, and we ended being the only ppl with any sort of decoration (along with the English Adult fellowship)...so that was cool.

Saturday - Woke up to get ready at church, we already were running late (we said 9:30, got there around 9:45) and were the first ones there -_- oh well, I helped set up tables to prove my manliness, and then food street was fun. Got to cook a lot, and ppl liked our green onion pancake. And saw a bunch of college ppl who rarely come back!!! Man, I miss Saiyan and the twins sometimes (well, only when i see them, haha, but they were my friends...ya know?) Anyhoo, i didn't get to sample much food tho -_- not even our own, haha, only the very far side food, so...:T oops. oh well....
Went home, and after like 5 hours of standing/moving, I was uber tired, so I didn't go to see Star Trek...:T just slept. Woke up later to eat dinner and then went to Auntie winnie's to play mahjong, sing 1 karaoke song (Beautiful Goodbye...yay!! i was so glad to see that in their ghetto english song list) as well as see Phoebe's new kitten...it's SO SMALL. and kinda cute, but Bear's already awesome and heavy, lol.

Sunday - Went to church, as usual, and then ate at cheese berry with ECC ppl, and then went to Phoebe's to help her take care of her kitten...we were trying to train it to use the litter box, and it did!! at least it #2ed in there, and we were too busy celebrating afterwards that we didn't notice she crawled into the newspapers right after that to #1...so...semi-win, semi fail. anyhoo, i'll tell phoebe to keep eye out for other kittens, and i'll take them to the SPCA...they'll probably get adopted.
Came home and slept some more, and then ate dinner, and now i'm here...

really have to write that essay D:
and my cat's staring at me...she wants to eat...