random throwback

I thought I would give a random throwback into our Kappa days... this was after a Kappa Thanksgiving when we were (maybe not so obviously) tipsy prior to CC, haha. Good job!

Happy holidays, ladies!!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here's a picture of a variation of the little Christmas tree cards we made in my classes today. The kids had a lot of fun with them. 

Hope you're having a good time spending this holiday season with loved ones! And here's to next year filled with good friends, good family, and good, drunken times. 
(Ok sorry, inappropriate. I hope you have more sober times next year than inebriated times in general.)


Looove,
Clarissa

hazelnut coffee leads to productivity

Geoffrey thought he would say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Kelly (:

Sweet Jamz!

My current fav. I'm such a sucker for electro pop.

8:15

Coffee is about to kick in and I got the beats goin...



It's going to be a good day.

Disneyland Christmas

Soooo.. I am a Disneyland annual pass holder, hahaha. This is the Christmas tree in Disneyland.... with me and my Disney friend :D We double-dated with Joe & Christina this past Friday, December 3. I got nauseous midway through our date, so that explains my shitty face haha.

And yes... that is Ryan, the SigEp :D ENJOY!

DECEMBER

So far, December has been very good to me. I have a new job working on a new movie for DISNEY! It's a stop motion film like "Nightmare Before Christmas". I had to sign a confidentiality agreement that I wouldn't talk about the film, which is fine because I still don't understand what the film is about. All I know is that it is a 2 year project and scheduled to release sometime in 2013.

Not only that, I impulsively went and got a tattoo the day after Thanksgiving. Its just my Chinese name. I had my mom write it out because she has the better hand writing and then got home and showed it to her. She was actually pleased about it.
OMG and I turn 25 this month...I can rent a car! yay?

Happy Gobble Day, hope everyone is enjoying their food coma.

<3

I'm blogggggggging!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To continue with Courtney's picture posting nostalgia, here's another one from the archives.

I miss all of you guys so much. I can't wait to come home and continue our Thanksgiving. 

Happy Birthday Clarissa!!!!

Hope your birthday is merry!!!!! Wish we could all celebrate it together :-) I apologize for the nostalgia, but does anyone else remember this night? It was on this night that I was first introduced to Lawry's seasoning salt, and my culinary life has never been the same.

Party Cats

I hope everyone had a good Halloween!  I'm loving Halloween more and more every year.  It's like the one day where anything flies, and as I'm getting older less and less is able to fly on any other day.

So, on Friday some friends and I went to Vanguard to this...


It was super sick. I dressed up as Batman. I posted pictures on FB of us before we went out.

Saturday I went to my friends house party. My friends Carisa, Sophie, and I were party cats from this comic...

Today, Tomorrow, Forever!

I hope everyone is having a good week!

FALL

It's fall! The leaves are turning a beautiful shade of red and orange and it means its just about time for snuggle weather. There has been a lot going on in this past month for me, a Japanese show project, new friends, and good eats. Unfortunately the Vancouver job I wanted fell through because they fired the American director and then just hired an all canadian crew. I'm still waiting to hear on some new projects that will let me travel but at the rate that San Francisco is getting projects, my location managers might just keep me here. :-/ Not sure how I feel about that yet. But here are some pics that reflect my month of October.

So this is from the Grand Hyatt Hotel Rooftop in San Francisco. 40 stories +. OMG! its a good thing I am not afraid of heights because my boss made me stay up there all day, and it was hot as shit. It was during an SF heat wave and you'd think that being on a rooftop there would be some wind...NO, no breeze, just you being closer to the sun.

Giant sized portions at the Blackbear Restaurant in Concord. The Southern Scramble of a giant biscuit, sausage pattys and scrambled eggs then covered in gravy and hash browns...YUM and then my brother didn't want his giant pancakes so I had that on the side of my plate as well. I felt like such a fat ass but just felt like eating something so bad that made me feel so good...
Then.....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! I partied hard in SF on Friday and Saturday. Hung out with new friends in the Castro and had the time of my life! Not gonna lie, I was beyond hammered but didn't care and it was fun to have a ridiculous gay man in Superman panties tell me how fabulous my boobs were. And since I have reused this costume I decided to make it my Asian Import Car Model outfit, and the pose on the car is for Marisa. I know its blurry but I kinda like it.

<3 I hope everyone had a fantastic and safe Halloween!

music update (:

Sara Bareilles: King of Anything I know how much you loved her album "Little Voice" and this is her new song. It's the same Sara Bareilles we've known to love (: ENJOY!!

This next one is an oldie, but definitely a goodie. Sergio Mendes: That Heat remastered by Will.I.Am. Sergio Mendes is so classic- I love him- so I'm hoping you'll like him too (If you don't already, of course). The whole album remastered by Will.I.Am. is actually quite amazing... I'm a fan of "Let Me" and "Timeless", so good.

Another band I really like is The XX. One of my more favorite songs is: Islands. But honestly, the entire album is a-mazing! It's their debut album and it's freakin' great. Other personal favs on the album include "VCR", "Crystalized", "Heart Skipped a Beat" and "Stars"... lol basically listen to the entire album front to back.

Of course.... I love anything Bruno Mars. His song "Count on Me" is fabulous... I don't think there's an official video for it quite yet. Maroon 5's new album is good, too. Hmm... the Drake & Rihanna song "What's my name" is another goodie. I hope this entertains you for a little bit!!

On another note... since our blog is public, I can't post my recent endeavors haha but I'm happy to share via skype!!!

<3>

Eurotrip Winter 2011?

So I know it's a long while away but I've been thinking about when I'm done here. I want to do some travelling and I would loove to see all of you. So just think about it, but would anyone be down to meet me in Europe sometime before Christmas? Just think about it. But think good thoughts about it :)

Happy Autumn!!!

Took my nephew to the pumpkin patch yesterday, and we had a blast. This place had flagship 40+ pound "mega" pumpkins and not gonna lie - I kinda want to go back and buy one tomorrow.

Sweetpea on picture day...

So, this past weekend I turned the big 2-5. Am I sad about it? No, not really. I think I could be 30 and still be ok, as long as I've at least gotten into Vet school by then. Anyway, a few of us went wine tasting! I had a really good time. At the last place we went the guy at the bar made me a necklace out of ribbon, a luggage tag, and a cookie cutter.







So there were 6 of us that went, and somehow we decided to take 1 car. This is 4 of us in the backseat. Jon and his brother were in the front. We definitely need to go again.

I love this time of year.  

I'm an Azeri housewife

Curious about the exciting weekend life that hits the raunchy southern town of Neftchala? Look no further friends. You are now getting the super secret, super coveted view into the life of a PCV Azerbaijan weekend.


First I started off by cleaning and peeling 2 pounds of string beans to freeze.

It was followed by a super sexy performance of pickling eggplant.

Then the shocking act of making and freezing enchilada sauce. (This was actually pretty daring because I burned my hands from the hot peppers and fell asleep holding an ice pack.)

The next morning as I recovered from the previous day's endeavors, I made scones: salty cheesy ones and sweet cinnamon raisin ones.

Finally as a daring after thought, I made compote. A drink made from pouring boiling water into a mixture of fruit and sugar. This is nar (pomegranate.)

So there it is friends, a fully packed weekend of... WINTER PREPARATION!

Redwood Forest

I also took a last minute mini roadtrip with my Dad last weekend, he was visiting some friends and then we went to go see the redwoods near Santa Cruz. According to a timeline at the ranger station... this tree I am standing in front of is approximately the same age as Jesus (seriously).

Still Recovering from Last Weekend :-)

Lassst weekend (10.01.10) I went to see Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at the Hollywood Bowl with my parents. It was awesome!!

Top 5 Reasons the Hollywood Bowl is the best venue ever:

5) You can ride public transportation with yuppies carrying Trader Joe's bags & drinking wine out of Tupperware containers.

4) You can bring your own picnic,

3) Or purchase an already prepared picnic once inside the Bowl.

2) There is a translator who is illuminated to the left of the stage that interprets the lyrics into sign language (while dancing and totally rocking out) for the hearing impaired.

1) You can enjoy the best acoustics in all of LA under the stars.

How was everyone's weekend?

Life in the Midwest

Hello all. Here are a few snapshots of the current situation.

This is Derek, my boyfriend/roommate. We've been officially dating for one year as of yesterday.

We live in the top left 1/4 of this condo with his old college roommate, Tyler, who works for Chiquita.

And these are my students/loves.

Ok these photos are taking forever to load so theres my introductory post for now.

I miss you all!!!

Tbilisi!

So here are some pictures of when I went to Tbilisi a couple weeks ago. Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia and it's only a couple hours away from the northern border of Azerbaijan. It was a nice little getaway before I had to get back into the daily school grind. 

This is me overlooking the old part of the city.

This is Old Guy. It's a long story of how we came to agree on taking him with us to Tbilisi. We found him in my friend Ze's apartment closet. He's an easy conversation starter. This is the view of Tbilisi from the top of the hills overlooking it. 

These are a bunch of other PCVs from Azerbaijan that we bumped into that weekend. We're relaxing in some hot sulfur baths.

Outside of the Turkish baths. From left to right that's Eli, Myriam, Amy, Sean, me, and Ze who I went up with.

Just me and my buddy Charlie.

The food is so BOMB there. That's hagipoori on the left, this fried cheesy bread and a roasted potatoes and pork dish.

Here's me and Ze in front of the Saint George statue in the middle of Freedom Square. This is where the Rose Revolution took place in 2003.

Nightlife in Tbilisi. Lots of homemade wine. Lots of Russian vodka.

Here's Old Guy in our first class train cabin. Lush isn't it? 

Close Encounters with TSA

I flew North this past weekend to visit Jason & Lola, and when I was leaving on Monday I totally went through one of these new crazy ass full body scanners at San Jose Intl . I had trouble looking the TSA dude in the eyes... totally smirked at him. Have any of you gone through one of these things yet?

The only thing that went through my mind when they told me to spread my legs, put my hands above my head, and not to move for a few seconds was the picture I posted above. But I'm okay with being x-rayed as long as everyone else gets violated too (which they do), and no one is singled out.

P.S. Guess who I saw at the airport when I landed in Burbank? It's sooooo lame, but I SAW THE JETBLUE FLIGHT ATTENDANT THAT WENT BANANAS, QUIT, & SLID DOWN THE EMERGENCY EXIT SLIDE hahahahhahahhahahaha that was probably disappointing for you to read, but it made me giggle when I realized who it was.

I also wanted to bring Lola a bone in my suitcase, but I was concerned a narcotics K-9 might confuse the rawhide for drugs :-)

Bear or Dog?

Is say bear, but I might be a little biased.

Some of the stuff I did during summer

This was at a rooftop party.  Don't mind Hello Kitty.  She's not covering the dj's girlfriend or anything.

This was an outing at Drais in Hollywood.

A picture of my friend Sam and I at Hard...the line up is below.

Crystal Castles, Major Lazer, The Twelves, Erol Alkan were some of the highlights!  So sick.

My Dad turned 60 this year, and we went sailing to celebrate!  The other kids are my half siblings.

Standard rooftop in Downtown on a lazy, drunken Sunday.  Too much sun and alcohol is a sure fire way for me to pass out.  "I kept poking your nose to try to wake you up, but you wouldn't move.  I just looked like a creeper." -my friend Raj [not pictured]

With a dj named Classixx at Pacific Festival!