Comic-Con

Today we went to Comic-Con with Peppermint & Tom. This was a very exciting day for Tom because he'd been wanting to go to Comic-Con for a long time. San Diego is famous for this annual convention, and about 150,000 people come for Comic-Con every year. We drove to Qualcomm Stadium and took the trolley to downtown again. Peppermint and Todd on the train. Once inside the convention center, we took the escalator up to register and get our badges. Tom and Todd were very excited and ready to get started. The exhibition floor was HUGE with very fancy displays. Todd with Bumble Bee from The Transformers. One of my favorite childhood cartoons in Taiwan (but it's Japanese): Mazinger Z! I was excited, because do you know who was sitting in the background in the photo, signing autographs? It's none other than Peter Mayhew, Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies! Todd caught a photo of someone in a Captain America costume. Me with the spies from Spy vs Spy (Mad magazine). Todd saw a woman in Wonder Woman costume. Todd with R2A6 from Star Wars: Phantom Menace. Todd found Waluigi from Super Mario Brothers. When we were leaving, Todd saw this guy from Rotten Tomatoes. Peppermint kept telling Todd to go take a bite out of the tomato, so he did! This photo makes me laugh really hard, LOL. After a good six hours at Comic-Con, we were tired, so we left and went to dinner at Nozomi's. We had sushi there and it was all delicious, except that both my sushi and Peppermint's sushi were very spicy. Hers even spicier than mine. Then we took them to Tea Station, where we introduced Tom to boba milk tea. He said he found it "interesting". We had a lot of fun today, but it was also very exhausting. I'm betting tomorrow's adventures will get a late start as we all get some beauty sleep tonight!

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Picking Einstein's Nose

When it comes to Legos, I think we are all forever kids. Who hasn't played with and loved Legos growing up? Today Peppermint, Tom, Todd, and I went to Legoland to experience the Lego goodness. Upon entering, Todd decided to have a lightsaber fight with Darth Vader. In our opinion, the highlight of Legoland for us grown-ups, is definitely Miniland USA. They re-create many cities in the U.S.A. with Legos! Their re-creation of Las Vegas was truly incredible. Next we headed to New York City. I tried to be godzilla, but I wasn't fierce enough. Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. The streets of San Francisco. Our nation's capitol. Down to the detail of Barack Obama being sworn in as president. This is the workshop where they built all this stuff! Peppermint and Todd went on a ride. Tom and I were, how shall I put it? We were scaredy little wienies. I get dizzy easily, I don't know what Tom's excuse is. So it was just Peppermint and Todd. They were tossed about left and right. But they didn't get dizzy, so I guess they were the right people to send on the rides! Todd and I went for the tamer fun of sliding. Sigh. Boys will be boys. We left Legoland around 3pm, because we still have other fun spots to hit! For one thing, we wanted to show Peppermint and Tom our favorite place to run, Swami's in Encinitas. The cliffs there provided gorgeous views. The surfers were out in full force today. Next was a place that I promised Peppermint I'd take them when they came: Cupcake Love. Then we went to the Cedros Design District in Solana Beach and browsed around the quirky, handmade consignment shop Leaping Lotus. Peppermint found some interesting masks to try on. Then it was dinnertime. You can't come to San Diego without having some fish tacos, so off we went to Rubio's. I think the fish tacos were a big hit! Then we drove to Qualcomm Stadium, where we waited to get on the trolley train to go downtown. We brought some snack foods and our blankets. We were going to the San Diego Symphony Pops concert featuring music from video games! We ended the evening watching the sunset and listening to awesome symphonic video game music and eating our snacks. Today was pretty exhausting because we were out for 12 hours straight. Tomorrow will be another big day, so I must rest up now. Come back tomorrow for more San Diego adventures!

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Look Who Came For Dinner

Peppermint & Tom arrived in San Diego today! We're gonna cart them around and show them the sights. We started with In-N-Out Burger for dinner tonight. Because if you come to Southern CA, this is a classic, must-eat place. She tried to imitate the Todd-taking-a-big-bite face, but she doesn't look like Todd very much, doesn't she? I think it was a thumbs up for the In-N-Out Burger! Especially the fries. I "met" Peppermint about March of last year, when we got on a few of the same CT's together. We hit it off right away, and we've been chatting almost daily on IM ever since. Now I can say she's my friend IRL (in real life)! Oh and I promised her I won't drug her and sell her kidneys. You never know what kind of weird people you meet on the intertoobs. :| The next few days should be fun-filled and exciting. We're playing tour-guide, our favorite role!

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The Pros of Paradox

Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a few forwards as the saying goes. I had to switch phone numbers this week. Since cell number portability has already come to the US, this seems so 1990s. But now I get to take advantage of my Google Voice invitation that just came. Google Voice is très cool, so I definitely think I moved forward overall. If it interests you, word is you can get an invite a couple weeks after requesting it these days. It took me several months BTW. And now I have no more phone confusion. Listgirl sent me a link the other day about what makes for a creative personality. As I read through that, I thought "yes, yes, this is me!" But looking closer, a lot of the statements were vague enough that many if not most people would agree with most of the statements in there. But that didn't stop me from thinking about where I match up. So here is some self-reflection on the intersection between me and the traits of a creative person.

1. Androgyny. Listgirl and I have said for years that the two of us are both highly androgynous in personality. I like sports, speed, getting sweaty, salty meat and lots of manly things. But I'm not afraid of "girly" things like shopping, cooking, and watching Gilmore Girls.
2. Exhibits both convergent and divergent thinking. My engineering background makes me a problem solver. I am nothing if not a science-based, think-it-through type. But I am comfortable brainstorming, seeking unusual solutions, looking for others' points of view, and settling for a "good enough" answer.
3. Grounded in reality and flies into imagination/fantasy. I used to read only non-fiction in an attempt to learn, learn, learn more. But I couldn't keep that up. Eventually, I feel too constrained by reality if I don't have some avenues of escape. So I mix in the fiction along with movies etc to provide imagination jumping-off points.
4. Rebellious and conservative. To this day, I am a boundary pusher. I always think it a challenge to see what I can get away with while still appearing the obedient one. This quirk certainly exhibits in music performance. I love to mix things in that don't "fit" to see if people notice, if it bothers them, etc. "Conservative" here is in the context of the art form. I so often read about people who eschew musical training because it will "stifle their creativity." It never fails to chafe. I have one question to those with that point of view: How do you know?

OK, enough of that. I could go on but I'll spare you. Self-reflection is great, but too much of it prevents one from moving forward after all. Until next week!

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Goals Part 3: People Are Worth It

Continuing on my series of posts evaluating my goals for this year... today I will discuss my Emotional/Social goals for living a balanced life. If you've missed it, I posted earlier last week on my physical/health goals, and my mental/intellectual/creative goals. I have a complicated relationship with people. I will fully admit that at times I get really frustrated with people. People disappoint me sometimes. To me, people are unpredictable. Often in my interactions with people, I can't control the outcome, thus it frustrates me. I also expect a lot from people, and this always leads to disappointment. Because one thing that we can count on is that people are fallible, even though I have a hard time accepting this fact. God is infallible. People are fallible. All that being said, I am people too. And because I belong in that people category, I am flawed as well. As flawed as we all are, we continue to have relationships with each other. We aren't made to be alone all the time. We need social interaction to enrich our lives. We need deeper emotional connections with others. I am blessed that I have a husband who is my best friend. He fulfills a lot of my emotional needs. But besides him, I do need to have some other friends. As I get older, I find it harder and harder to hit it off right off the bat with people I meet. I do think it's harder to make good friends when you get older. We bring more baggage to the table, LOL. When my mom passed away 2.5 years ago, I withdrew. I worked more from home instead of going to the office. I only hung out with a couple of close friends. I didn't feel like meeting new people. I felt that it was very taxing and exhausting to meet new people and make new friends. At the end of last year, I finally decided it wasn't the healthiest for me. I didn't want to FORGET how to talk to people! I didn't want to become an inflexible hermit who can't adjust to the give-and-take of forming friendships. So I came up with a list of goals to be more social this year.

• Make two new friends. (Since I really only have three close friends, this was a tall order!)
• Cultivate current friendships by calling/emailing regularly.
• Call/visit dad & Joyce (my family).
• Go to the office 3X per week.
• Invite people over more regularly for dinners, movies, games, football, etc.

I think I've made some progress in this area. I expanded my social network by joining a running club. I've made it a point to do more things with my girlfriends. I've gone to the office at least 3X per week every week this year. I've gone back to after-work gym class, not just for the workouts, but I enjoy the company there. The kitchen remodel got in the way of inviting people over, but now that it's over, we're planning our social schedule with full force. Todd is holding up his end by introducing me to his friends from work and from Toastmasters. One unexpected source of friendship is from this blog and the internet. Before last year, I never dreamed of making friends with people I met on the internet. Now I can count a few scrappy women on my creative teams and a few who frequent this blog as true friends. They fulfill the emotional need for friendship as well, and I don't discount that at all. The remodel has also brought me further out of my shell. I mean, people were coming over to our house almost on a daily basis. I made it a point to get to know them, ask them questions about their life. I learned a lot about the art of conversation, and I think I'm better at it today than I was on January 1st. Making and keeping friends will continue to be something I work on, because it doesn't come easily or naturally to me. But I still try, despite some failures and frustrations. I guess in the end, I feel that people are worth it, despite all our flaws. :) Today's photo is of me and Rico, my 10 year old Honda Prelude. I've had him for TEN years! Yes, it's a "him". And don't ask me why I gave him a latino name when he's obviously Japanese. There was no rhyme or reason. He's been so reliable, and despite his age, I still love him and hope that he lasts another five years, at least. Here we were in June 1999, when I first got him. (I had to find the photo and scan it in, LOL!) I think we both look better with age, don't you? Heh heh. Oh! If you're a winner from yesterday, please email me at iamlistgirl at gmail dot com if you haven't already. I'll email you your Pixel Gypsy Designs $5 GC when I hear from you. Also, if you've "delurked" on this blog and emailed me there today, I've emailed you back too! I loved hearing from you!

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