LeahAndMark.com

I am so very saddened by the recent news from China.  Over 18,000 people are reported buried in just one of the cities affected.  I hope that everyone we met last month is okay.  But even then, there are thousands of people we didn’t meet who were affected.  People who are just as kind, as generous, as hospitable as the many wonderful Chinese folks we did get a chance to know. 

 The news coming out of Myanmar in the past few weeks saddened me, too, but having just come from China… for some reason, this time, the news really sunk in.  Or, rather, I let it sink in.  You hear these ridiculously high numbers, and it all becomes a blur.  You don’t want to think about how many lives are truly lost, or forever changed by the loss of a husband, a mother, a child, or a home.

But then I thought about Wang Da Wei, Li Bao Hua, and each individual face and personality….they aren’t just numbers.  If one of my Chinese friends, or one of the fellow travelers we made friends with, was a part of that 18,000… that’s one really awesome person who is no longer here. 1, 2, 3, 26,000….  it adds up.  People and more people.  Silenced.  Buried.  Gone.

China will rebuild.  Efficiently, collectively.  The people will come together, work their asses off, and within a year or so there will be no sign of this gigantic earthquake that took so many lives.  Children will be born.  Widows will remarry.  Life will go on.  China has been going on for thousands of years.  The quiet strength of its people is impressive.  But there will be grief.  There will be scars below the surface.  There will be remembrance.  And there will, hopefully, be healing.

So as I sit here at Phoenix SkyHarbor, waiting for my flight, I’m very, very happy that I was able to come out for my brother’s graduation. It’s always interesting to see my family - especially since I’m honestly not as close as I could be with them. Although I’ve made some progress over the last few years, it’s still always a gap that has to be bridged whenever I see them - but again, it’s getting better. Not that anything ever happened, I just went off and did my own thing for such a long time. And while it stings me that I cannot get back that lost time with them - times that I simply missed out on because I was just more interested in my friends and other people who don’t really matter. Still, I’d like to think that my relationship with them is improving.

I have to warn all of you, I’m on this big kick of being  ‘present’ and not so much living in the future or the past (I never really did the past thing, but the future? It’s a favorite place I like to hangout in.) This weekend I did try to be more present with everyone and less… thinking about what I was going to do next, or when I get back or just.. thinking about other things while I was spending time with someone - such as my brother, or my sister, or my parents. For me at least, it was probably one of my best trips and time spent with my family in a long time.

And while my life is continuing to get busy and full with everything and Leah, it’s still always in the back of my mind that I need to make the effort, to call, to write, to spend time with them - and help them spend time with me. Because obviously, even though all of a sudden I’m making the effort, they’re not used to making the effort to hangout with me - simply because we’re all out of practice. And even though we’re on opposite sides of the country, I am glad that I am probably much more connected to them now, than when I lived across town. The significant distance makes everything hard to take for granted.

And although I don’t have a picture of my mom posted, over the last few years I know that we have both opened up to each other considerably. As hard and stubborn as we both are, it was once difficult - like it is between so many people - but these days, I accept and feel the love that she has for me - not that it wasn’t always there - but you know what I mean. So. Today I fly back to Atlanta and it’ll be good to be back with Leah and One-Two and Three-Four, I’ve missed them and while it was great to be here, everyone has missed Leah and wished that she would have come.

I was reading BeingAmberRhea today and she mentioned Animoto. Wow. Forget ever making plain slideshows anymore. Below is my test product and now I have a much better way of working on showing all of the photos from our trip to China. - apparently there’s a fee to make the full-length “videos” and it’s totally worth it to me - but if anyone knows of any other, possibly better versions than Animoto then please let me know so I can check it out. Thanks!

I was trying to write this and trying to find the appropriate ‘right’ photos of the graduation - you know the ones, showing the whole scene and layout and capturing all those memories - but it wasn’t working. I took the obligatory amount of video (lots) with my camcorder, and now I need to go get a firewire card and install it on Leah’s desktop (don’t worry Leah! it’s not a power supply so the chance of me causing your motherboard to catch on fire is…. well, it’s considerably less.

And then I can transfer everything from China AND my brother’s graduation. Plus, with new found amateur editing skills, it won’t just be background noise and I can do cuts and music and ummmm… practice for the China slideshow.

So. Graduation. Or, um, Commencement as they call it. It was an excellent fast ceremony, under two hours and even the speeches didn’t drone on and on. We were soon on our way to lunch, and then the Lumberjack Hunt.

What’s that? Well, Northern Arizona University’s mascot is a Lumberjack. So there are several lumberjacks around town. We decided to start looking for them and hanging out. But first!

And now… onto the Lumberjacks! There was one inside the SkyDome at the graduation ceremony overseeing the event.

Then there was one just outside - and just as gigantic.

But wait! There’s more! Outside of the restaurant where we had lunch, there was another one! And then finally, we found one more - except this one was like… the Harper romance novel version of a lumberjack - right in front of the university bookstore.

So we’re finishing school in reverse order. My youngest sister already has her bachelor’s degree, and is a year away from her Master’s. My brother, obviously has his now, and I’ll finally get mine around the time of the wedding next year.

Hanging out and talking with my brother and sister is always an interesting conversion. Not only because we’re siblings, but because we’re quite intelligent - and we know it. Or rather, whether it’s right or not, all three of us have healthy superiority complexes - at least as far as smart things go. Plus with our very diverse range of knowledge (Physics and all things science, Literature and all things Library, and then me with Business/Finance.) it’s just fun to ask them questions. And argue. Or debate. I learn nearly as much from my brother and sister as I do from my classes that I’m taking right now… possibly more.

And if it seems as though I’m blatantly bragging about my brother and sister - you’re right. But I write this stuff not only to show how proud I am of them, but because they push me - whether they really know it or not, and whether they actually tell me or not - they do. Because damn, with siblings like these, coupled with my own competitive nature - what choice do I have other than continuing my education (life and academic) to show them that in fact - I’m the smartest one!

Okay, we post entirely way too much on here. But hey… our lives are full and fantastic, and while we have the time…might as well, right?

I went to Frank Ma’s Dinho Chinese Restaurant last night with the awesomely crazy/cool Yelpers for a Chinese feast. Mark had to miss out, so here’s a little clip just for you, my love. Enjoy!

Today we drove up to Flagstaff, Arizona. A small town about 2 hours north of Phoenix and home to Northern Arizona University where my brother is graduating with his Physics degree.

We also met up with my grandparents and their old friend King - they live in Fresno, California and they drive Everywhere. My grandmother is 87 years old and she still looks amazingly young. They actually make it a point to take care of themselves and maintain their health the best they can - they eat right, walk when they can and generally stay as active as much as their bodies allow them. Every year they take a month long road trip around the United States and last year they notified us that they were coming to Atlanta the day before. But that’s how my family is when it comes to travel - plans are hardly ever made more than a week in advance. My grandma is a rockstar.

I was also able to visit my friend Vanessa at StarSux today. She’s the store manager at the one down the street from my parents house so whenever I’m in Phoenix, I make it a point to stop by and visit - and she always writes MarkRoX as my name on the side of the cup. I used to live with Vanessa and work with her while I also worked at Starbucks. I can honestly say that it was one of my most favorite jobs where I had the most fun - until I burned out and just started doing bad things. But still, it’s always nice to visit her. She’s had some… turbulent years but it looks like she’s coming out just great and I hope she really takes advantage of the momentum that she has now. She’ll also be attending our wedding next year in May so it’ll be fun to hang out with her in Atlanta - I’m just so happy with Atlanta in general that it’s like I want to show it off - especially to my friends in Phoenix.

On a side note: We’re staying at the same motel that my high school speech and debate team would stay at whenever we would come up here for a tournament.

It’s been awesome to hangout with everyone, but it’s really nice to see my brother and sister. I’m not the closest with them so it was really great to hangout and talk just the three of us after dinner. These two - they’re quite bright and full of genius. They literally laugh at the GRE math portion - and rightfully since they both received perfect scores on that section - without really studying for it at all. I’m pretty good at math, but they’re hardkore and to easily get a perfect score on such a test - well… that just shows you what level they operate at in that department.

I cannot describe how proud I am to have such smart siblings.

It’s unfortunate that Leah couldn’t come along. I do miss her and this would be that much more fun having her here with us. My grandma was very happy to hear that we’re engaged and getting married.

And now it’s late. I’m up too far and I should’ve gone to sleep - now I’ve screwed up my timezone/jet lag sync even more. But. I have one more thing. As we walked through downtown I saw this hotdog cart - and then I saw some dancing mascots. A mustard and ketchup bottle. So you KNOW I had to go over and get a hotdog. There’s some video here of them dancing - and since I’m slowly practicing my video editing skills - I even added some music you don’t have to listen to the wind noise. Goodnight.

I really like flying back to Phoenix. I like visiting this city a lot. While I would probably never choose to live here again, visiting this city and seeing my friends and family again is always a welcomed treat. When you add any feelings of nostalgia, and all of the time I spent growing up here - it turns out to be a really good time for me. Just driving around the loop, seeing the open sky and open desert stretching to the end of horizon - the difference from Georgia is night and day.

And then there’s the heat. Dry when it hits your face, it’s like stepping into an oven where you can see the heat bending light as it moves across the concrete.

After landing and picking up rental car, I met up with my friend Kristen for lunch. She’s a dance instructor here in Phoenix (hip hop, jazz, and nearly everything else except ballet and tap) teaching at studios and schools and now she’s even got her own dance studio starting up. So things are going really well for her. This summer she’s also the director of two high-end dance camps in Colorado and then Lake Tahoe.

I remember how just a few years ago we were both out of work and basically really poor. Around the same time period, on one of our monthly dinners at Five & Diner, I was maxed out on credit cards with no cash, and she didn’t have enough to cover my half of the meal either. SO. She left me there and went and got money from her dad at his place - mind you, we were already in our early 20’s at this time so it’s not like we were jobless high school kids. So yeah. It’s been a nice change to see both of us keep making progress as far as jobs/money/career. And I’m really happy to see that her dance/instructor/owner career is starting to gain momentum.

  Mark is in Phoenix right now and I miss him bunches!  I would’ve gone, but I’ll be in Baltimore next weekend for my BFF Lauren’s graduation.  She is getting her Master’s in Social Work and I’m soooo proud of her!  So many graduations are on Fridays, and Mark and I are already missing work the Friday after next for my brother’s graduation… so, I had to forfeit the trip to Phoenix because it wasn’t in the budget or in the time-off-from-work plan.  It’s hard to ask for more time off when you’ve just been in China for a month!

Actually, I feel like we’ve been so busy since being back here that I haven’t really processed everything we experienced in China.  I’m going to make some time this weekend to at least privately write down my thoughts.  People keep asking us, “So, tell us about China!”  And we both sort of falter…because we haven’t had the time to put the stories together, to pick and choose from the many that never made it on the website, and to find the right words to accurately convey what China is like.

I think a part of it, though, is that our life is so fantastically awesome right now that we’re more in the moment than ever before.   We had a wonderful time in China, but we’re having a great time here, too, so there isn’t the need to look back and go over all of last month.  Because then we’d miss out on enjoying all of this month!

Tonight I’m meeting up with some Yelpers for a Chinese Feast at Frank Ma’s in Chamblee.  It’s a large-ish restaurant in this big Chinese shopping center area and the owner, Frank, is always zipping around the restaurant greeting and talking to all of his guests.  Mark is bummed to miss out, but he gets his mom’s amazing cooking, so it’s sort of a wash.

Okay, everyone can read Mark’s entry below, so I’m not posting the rules again… but here are 6 things about me you may or may not find interesting:

1. When I have to use a public toilet, I always tear off the end of the toilet paper and dispose of it before tearing off some to wipe with…  I just always think that maybe the person before me had dirty hands and touched the paper.

2. I have 1 grandfather, 3 grandmothers, 5 uncles, 6 aunts, and 23 cousins still living, in addition to a father, mother, and brother. 

3. I will soon have a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and grandparents-in-law to add to my big, crazy family.  I’m very excited about that.  Mark’s family is beyond awesome!

4. Almost all of these people will (hopefully) be at the wedding.

5. That really limits the number of other people we can invite.  So please don’t feel bad if you don’t get an invitation!  It doesn’t mean we don’t love you.  It’s just… our families would be pissed if they weren’t at the wedding.

6.  Yes, I worry about stuff like this because I was brought up to be an extremely polite and sweet Southern girl and I’ve been working hard ever since to lose some of that self-sacrificing, over-the-top niceness.  But not all.  Because it never hurts to be polite and hospitable!

Okay, and now for blogs I like to read:

http://jamesadamthwaite.com <– my BFF and crazy conspiracy theorist

http://girlsgonechild.blogspot.com  <– cool blog by a hip, young mom

http://schuylersmonsterblog.com  <– cool blog about a special dad-and-daughter duo

http://postsecret.blogspot.com  <– PostSecret.  Duh.

Because I was tagged (by RachelBurks) and because I never actually do these, today I am.

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself (things/habits/quirks).
4. Name some of your favorite blogs.
5. Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

1. Until I met Leah, I hadn’t planned on EVER leaving the United States. Since I wasn’t a US citizen, and my Filipino passport had expired, I just figured that the US was big enough and I didn’t need to go through the trouble of getting my citizenship, getting a passport, and flying off to someplace else. And then I met Leah and that whole plan of being land locked to the US was blown away.

 2. I’ve had roughly 17 jobs in 12 years. I’ve worked at Mcdonald’s, as airport security, 5 or 6 call centers, Uhaul reservations, car sales, overnight alarm monitoring, StarSux, and that’s not even including all of the different types of office jobs I’ve had.

3. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve eaten 100 chicken McNuggets in one sitting. (I stopped being able to taste them at all after about 34.)

4. The lowest I’ve ever gotten my body fat percentage was 9%

5. My alltime favorite foods are Fried Chicken, Orange Chicken, and Pizza - in that order.

6. Every year I get about 50 words in my novel for NanoWrimo - and then I quit.

*edit - I was hoping I could leave it at that, but Gabrielle pointed out that I didn’t complete rule number 4. And I suppose, I should also tag some people.

Some of my favorite blogs?… … it’s terrible but I don’t read too many other blogs. I suppose there used to be some, but - oh wait! Okay.

MelissaMaples.com
Yogagirl
And then people on my LJ flist.

Although I have started reading all of the blogs that are listed in the various link categories over on the side there. Does naming the blogs mean that I’ve tagged them? Nah. I’m sure most of them have done this already anyways. But I will definitely tag Leah.

And anyone else who wants to join in and post theirs down below in the comments section. You’re awesome no matter what.

It’s often interesting how we become acquaintances or friends with other people. The owners of the ultra hip and cool-like-we-wish-we-were clothing store Dresscodes in downtown Decatur is owned by our friends Karen and Brett. Karen used to work with Leah at her job a long time ago, but since their store is just around the corner from our house, every now and then we’re fortunate enough to get to hang out and have dinner and/or drinks with them.

Tonight we met up with the couple after closing hours and walked through downtown and over to Carpe Diem. They’re an awesome couple and I am happy that we know them. In fact, only recently I have really started to notice the collection of ‘couples’ that we’re collecting as friends. There are a few others and each couple is very different - although all of them are obviously cool and interesting (says me!)

With everyones busy schedules we haven’t had the chance to catch up with Karen and Brett for a while but it was nice to see them and talk about anything over a bottle of wine. I suppose I could elaborate or that I could say more and add some witty comments or awesome photos - but I kept my camera down and out of sight mostly. I didn’t even take any photos of the food - which was also quite good.

I fly out to Phoenix on Thursday and it’ll be nice to see my friends. There’s a time crunch since I’m spending all of Friday and Saturday with my family up north in Flagstaff, but I’ll still get to hangout with my friend Amy from high school. I’ve known her for… well, a long time now and if anyone other than Leah can be considered my partner in crime - it would be Amy.

We had so many good times hanging out at Denny’s late at night.

At work, we’re gearing up for a kids’ talent show this summer to raise awareness and support for the agency and the children we serve. So, we’re busy e-mailing all the metro Atlanta schools to let them know about it so they can get the word out to the students and parents before school lets out for the year. Today I tackled Gwinnett County, and I stumbled across the website for my elementary school, Brookwood. And looking over the list of faculty, it was just so amazing to see SO many of the same teachers I grew up with still teaching at Brookwood. My third grade teacher is now the Assistant Principal, and the teacher that we would partner up with to watch Reading Rainbow and go on field trips with is now the Principal. A lot of the parapros (teacher’s aides) are now teachers, too.

I fired off an email to the principal and assistant principal… I’m sure they’ll remember me, especially considering that my mom taught at Brookwood for…hmm, at least 15 or 20 years. The teachers there are some of her best friends…they’ve known my mom almost as long as I have, and they are just such nice people. Truly wonderful, really the epitome of what an elementary school teacher should be. The enthusiasm, the gentleness, the ability to make learning fun. Looking back, I feel so lucky to have had such a great start to the world of education…I felt supported, allowed to explore, and most of all, I felt cared about. And not just cuz my mommy was a teacher…the other teachers genuinely cared about their students. We were their kids, too. They spent 5 days a week with us, and even more than the classroom lessons, I remember learning about how to be a good person.

I lucked out and had some awesome teachers that took the time to go over the intricacies of human dynamics. We learned how to work together, how to overlook our friends’ faults, how to respect everyone’s differences. These lessons were an active part of the daily classroom experience. We were encouraged to help each other, to “play nice”…when issues came up with kids being teased or feeling left out, they were addressed and made right.

I just hope my own kids get an experience as great as I did at school. There are SO many horror stories about apathetic or unethical teachers, extreme bullying, etc. these days. But…looking at the list of teachers at Brookwood and seeing so many of the teachers I came to know and love still spreading their special magic through the classrooms… I have some hope that there are still some great schools out there.