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joyoushoneybear
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Name: Joy
Country: United States
State: California
Birthday: 9/17/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: volunteering, finding cheap places to venture to around LA (but soon Thailand), listening to spanish music (i know, its weird,but its mostly orlando's (my man) music)., learning how to read thai, being a beach bum for the summer, learning how to play the wooden xylophone (thai classical instrument). .....other hobbies include.. SLEEPING and eating good FOOD...
oh yeah, and watching my sister's lip balm empire boom into a fruitful business.
Expertise: Being indecisive, day dreaming, and sleep... and being a good pal to those I love.
:oP. Techincally, currently a Fulbrighter going to Thailand to study cancer, then off to Yale to study health management. Then, med school, eventually...
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/27/2002
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| My god...As Rob and I were flipping through the channels yesterday, we caught a glimpse of the Ms. Universe pageant. How sad...they picked Ms.Puerto Rico, a lady-boy looking 18-year old with an obvious nose job who had no taste but to wear a scantily clad evening "gown", over an educated (yes, she spoke 4 languages) cute Japanese girl... Figures, I suppose. | | |
| Howdy Folks!
Hace mucho tiempo that I’ve written on this page. So Thailand is treating me fairly well. My arrival here was marked by the expectedly generous and excited welcomings of fellow family members. I traveled up the Chaing Mai to check out some things for research and to visit my Uncle. He made my dad and I eat like little piggies all day. My Family has assumed that I only eat hamburgers in the States, so to compensate, I must must must try every kind of Thai food on the planet in a matter of 2 weeks. If only they that Thai restaurants are a plenty in the US, especially in Southern California and that I used to eat Thai food everyday when growing up with mom and dad. Ah well, I’m not complaining, it’s the best tasting kind of food in the world.
Let’s see, Bangkok has been interesting. There is a mix of eclectic tourists, rich hippies that come to teach English, volunteers who actually care, fashionable thai girls, shady farang (white) guys who prey on sketchy thai girls, with the backdrop of really underserved people who cater to the socially spoiled. Really folks, much social disparity exists here…well at least my impression of it is. I feel guilty for hanging out with the family like I do. For example, my cousin is publicist type person and I went to some Esquire Magazine interview with her in a shi-shi looking hotel (fun, but yeah i feel guilty when I know that the people waiting on me work really hard and don't get paid enough) and then there is my uncle who has his secretary call me to connect me before he talks to me, and the aunt who has a driver. However, I still get to be in touch with the more natural side of Thailand when I travel around with my Dad who is here for a few weeks. Hehehe…good old daddy who gets annoyed with the sight of the superficial and the lazy….. we eat off the streets at little stands that serve the best food and he takes me to the real home-style restaurants around town (yeah the kind with old plastic chairs and an obsolete fan blowing above you while you sweat and eat at the same time =)…
Props to the public service announcement people for putting a clever commercial on the Thai TV. Why? They made a thoughtful attempt at unifying the diversified masses into a mosaic of one face for the Thai nation. The commercial was like a 30 second blurb showing “Thai” people, which was accompanied by classical, dreamy Thai music in the background. It was analogous to one commercial in the States that showed black, white, yellow, and brown people all saying “I am American” at different times. The best feature of this commercial was that it was comprised of all kinds of Thai people from different regional backgrounds, dark-skinned Thai people, light-skinned Thai people, and most importantly, Muslim children.... NOTE: I do realize this was just a superficial attempt at unifying the massess, but at least they they tried.... It was beautiful to think that this form of Propaganda had a powerful message. In a country that is facing social tension, especially with the terrorist attacks in the south (like crazy shootings of Buddhist monks), it tried to show that we all have a universal standard for living: we laugh, we care for family, and we can be proud of our lineage. No matter how different a culture or group of people may seem, we all share these qualities. My favorite message in this TV blurb/propaganda was that it showed that Thai people should consider people of the Islamic faith equally Thai as everyone else. It also subliminally connoted that Islam is not to blame for the terror going on these days, thus we should be able to all live peacefully in Thailand without fear. It’s the radical ones that like to blow up people that makes the religion look bad in front of the rest of the world. This kind of terror makes the general public scared of it, when in reality it can be an admirable and respectable religion. I admire the thought that was put into this commercial.
I was sick and tired of hearing ignorant people say that “Its those people’s Bibles that make them do that”. I get so frustrated when I hear those things. I want to say to them, “First of all, ‘those people’s Bibles’ are not called Bibles”. AND SECOND, why do we not ask ourselves why seemingly good Christian boys enlist in the armed forces and fly planes over civilian territory to drop bombs? Why are some quick to think that killing people that kill people sends a message to the world that killing is bad? | | |
| Que Paso Gente!!! Its been a long time since my last update, so I'll just be short and sweet about it.
Work: I ended up working as an assistant in some corporate insurance office over the summer. It was fun. I meet really interesting people and got introduced into how horribly bureaucratic the work world is. In turn, I grew a ton of respect for secretaries, sinceI finally have realized how much they actually do. My last day was nice, but sad at the same time. I actually grew attached to some strangely funny people. The office threw a farewell party for me and brought a tray of Pad Thai to celebrate me leaving for Thailand soon. =) makes me want to miss the office ;)
Life: Everything is fine and dandy with the Mr. Orlando is studying hard, as usual. He's taking his test this friday. We've been trying to maximize our time together before i leave by going out to random museums, going to the beach, exploring eclectic & colorful parts of LA, and just chilling out and having nice home-cooked dinners together. We went out last night to this club in Santa Monica. I've realized that I'm getting tired of the LA scene, it makes me almost want to yawn. The divas are retarded. Orlando made a good point last night:if the girl spends more time worrying about what to wear and getting ready than the time spent thinking about worthwhile causes like... the world outside herself or her future... then she's really not a diva in his sense. She's merely overcompensating her intrinsic insecurities by over-embellishing her outward self in golden jewlery, ridiculously expensive jeans (probably bought on a credit-card), and tacky en la mode clothing. .... hehe, baby, have i told you lately how much i adore you? Is that why my mom keeps calling to chat with you on the phone instead of me? haha
I got into a car accident last month. yeah yeah, it WAS NOT my fault. A stupid guy side-swiped me on my drivers side. My car went into the air, kinda scary....but all is good. My neck sucks again, which really is depressing since I've been having to deal with my "yucky" neck syndrome for the past 3 years. I hope that I can find someone in Thailand to help fix it again. Meanwhile, I'm back in good ol' Physical Therapy.
I'm somewhat sad that this september i'm not going to back college. I guess graduation kinda ensured that. hehehe Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be done with the undergrad part of my life, but it's all too sad to think that i'm not going back to that safe and familiar circle of friends. But, life goes on. I guess new chapters in life always lead to new ventures. I'm also kinda excited to become a part of a new crowd for grad school at Yale. It'll be different to be constantly surrrounded by people who are interested in studying the same things that you are. ah well,. we'll see
Upcoming events: Going to 2 mexican weddings in the next 12days--one beach one and one garden one. hehe. i bet they will be pleasantly cute. For some reason people are just more friendly down there.
ok, i'm sleepy and I'm going to watch a movie. now. hehhehe. the joys of no school... well, not just yet.... cheers folks..... | | |
| thank goodness, college is over. I turned in my last final last thurs, and two theses before that. ::::sigh::::: ahhhhhhh... I just got back from san diego with shannon, we kind of did a short visit for senior week, since both of us were not so much in the mood to drink ourselves away. Good times though...I got a taxi driver to laugh at me while I was complaining how my back hurt from dancing all night... hehehe.. I'm getting old!.....
Anyhow, now I have to figure out what the hell I'm doing for a summer job this week and next...
Molly came to visit me last week, which was super fun. We went to K-town for some Korean BBQ, went golfing off of a high-rise building (first time, i don't even golf, be we had fun trying), then, went to an arcade to play "the a.k.a. my favorite" jurassic park game, and then finsihed the night off with some awesome karaoke which consisted of me laughing the whole time... ohhh, what a great time...
Also, shannon, leandra and I had our own little adventures. We went to hollyowood to check out this club, but then ended up going to another, since jammin' 70s music wasn't quite speaking to our dancing needs. It was awesome cause we ended up meeting a friend of mine and his guy pals from high school (very random, since my high school is 4-5 hours north). they took us to this hip-hop club, then at about 1:30 am, they basically snatched us hand by hand and led us to this large "techo" party.....I figured what the heck, it's a new adventure...there, this stupid guy on E kept stalking leandra, pretty sketchy..... At about 3:30 am, Leandra then took us to eat at Jerry's famous deli, where she told us to carefully watch to see if the waiters were on crack (she claims that they do crack so that they can stay up late) i love you leandra. haha. Again, what an awesome time..the best part was watching shannon and leandra dance up on the stage in the hip-hop club... hehehe..silly women. I forsee an adeventorous summer ahead! | | |
|  Drumroll please.... I choose Yale. I figured they cared about me the most since the professors e-mailed me about school and life out of the blue. Though I did carefully consider going to Harvard, I decided that one of my factors in considering H was the name, and that's not a good reason for me to go to a school. (Though, still, much love and respect for my friends that go there  ) Yale. good program. fun people. caring and accessible professors. BIG PLUS: its closer to NYC, which would hopefully be closer to Orlando, wherever he gets matched for a residency. We can have rendevous in NYC, hehehe...
I'm excited about thailand. I'm going to miss it here though. I'm trying to find an apartment to live in for the next year. Apparently, Fulbright pays a housing stipend, but I'd need to check out what parts are good to live in. I don't want to get kidnapped or anything. Trust me, there are very bad parts in Bangkok.
Orlando came to visit this week for his vacation from work. we went to a fun tapas place complete with a latin-type band. It was fabulous, we sipped on sangria while listening to fun latin tunes. ....orlando was able to sing the songs that he knew to me.... They played Juanes, my favorite latin artist, when I was there. I was so excited I nearly jumped out of my chair. hehehe... i guess i was able to sing along too...
before that we went to my Spring Formal...it was cute and funny to see how ** tipsy** my friends can get when they are decked out beautifully.
Fun upcoming event: I got tickets to go see Los Lonely Boys and Ozomatli in the summer! hehehe, VERY happy about that.
Anyhow, cheers people. I have to go, will write more later..... | | |
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