Growing Up With Action Flicks and Looking Up to Kick Ass Chicks

This post is for all the laddddiiiieees...actually you guys will like it too. I don't really know anyone who doesn't like a female heroine, unless they're an evil villain or one of their ex-boyfriends :P. I grew up on a lot of action/martial arts movies, but few of them featured kick ass females. Most of the time if there was a main female role, she played the damsel in distress, but that might be due to the fact I was a little girl and watched a lot of Disney Princess movies as well :P.




I knew from an early age that a princess didn't have to wait around for a prince to rescue her. Anyone recall "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert Munsch? One of the greatest children's books ever written...that and "The Very Hungry Catepillar" :P.



There are a good chunk of females who have graced the silver screen or the boob tube who took on great challenges, both physical and emotional but in my case I'm not talking about figure skating scandals, cheerleading sabotage, ballet turned hip-hop dancing switcheroo type of challenges, although those can be entertaining as well :P. I'm talking about super heroines, evil villianesses and overall rough and tumble chica's. Some of my personal all time faves include (in no particular order):


Sarah Connor, the mother you don't want to ever disobey, from The Terminator films, played by Linda Hamilton

The very intelligent and brave Lieutenant Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise, played by Sigourney Weaver

The mystical, quirky, loving and fighting spirit of Leeloo from "The Fifth Element", played by Milla Jovovich

The mysterious, devious and dynamic Catwoman from DC's Batman, in which I LOVED Michelle Pfeiffers performance

Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) the strong-willed teenage girl coming into adulthood, from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" TV series created by Joss Whedon

Max Guevara the genetically enhanced transgenic super-soldier, from the TV series "Dark Angel" played by Jessica Alba

(From left to right) Gabrielle (Renée O'Connor) the faithful and quirky sidekick, Callisto (Hudson Leick) the misunderstood and maniacal warrior, and Xena (Lucy Lawless) THE Warrior Princess, from "Xena: Warrior Princess" TV Series created by Sam Raimi

(In order of appearance) Kiddo Beatrix (Uma Thurman), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) from the Kill Bill films from the mind of Quentin Tarantino. Sorry to all you Vernita Green fans, I just thought out of all the characters she was lacking something...I think the suburban life kind of killed her in the end :P.



Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley), the runway model turned bounty hunter from the movie "Domino." This character was based on a true story. How much is true, I'm not sure, but she's still one of my faves :).

(In order of appearance) The powerful and independent Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and the swift and rebellious Jiao Long (Ziyi Zhang) from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

The intuitive, highly gifted and graceful River Tam (Summer Glau) from the TV Series "Firefly" and the feature film "Serenity."

The super slick and kick ass Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) from the Matrix trilogy.

The in-your-face Landlady (Yuen Qiu) with big heart and hidden martial art skills from Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle."

The miraculous and magnificent Quorra (Olivia Wilde) from Tron Legacy.

Here is Nikita (Peta Wilson) in the TV series "La Femme Nikita"

And here is Alex (Lyndsey Fonseca) and Nikita (Maggie Q) from the 2010 version of Nikita launched on the CW network.

There are many other kick ass females I left off the list...but I could be here all night if I keep at this rate hahaha. Right now I just want to focus on Nikita. I used to watch the 90's La Femme Nikita with Peta Wilson, which was created in Canada :). My mother and sisters tuned in one night and got hooked to this character and story. In this version Nikita had been a homeless woman being wrongly accused of murdering a cop, but in fact she was being set up for reasons unknown to her at the time. Although a lifetime in jail seemed like the only thing in her future, Nikita's life was going to change drastically. She had been set up by Section One, a top-secret government agency, who proceeded to fake her suicide in jail and recruit her to be trained as a highly skilled assassin. If she failed to comply she would then be killed. The series was amazing, so I was very sad to see it off the air.

Then 2010 rolled around and I started seeing promos for a remake of Nikita, starring one my fave actresses Maggie Q. I first saw her in a Chinese produced movie that my dad had bought called Naked Weapon. Although the plot line was plenty ridiculous, it was definitely entertaining. Just as a warning, this is not a movie to watch with your parents. I wish someone had warned me as there is one graphic scene in there that is more uncomfortable than just any other regular sex scene hahaha.

So in this remake Nikita has gone rogue, from the secret government agency, called Division. She recruits and trains a young girl by the name of Alex to join in her mission to seek revenge and take down the agency which has both brought destruction to their lives.

I've been waiting for a show like this to come on the air for a good long while. I love action, but I love it even more when the characters and story are multi-dimensional. In some of the episodes they go back in time to help explain more recent events. They give the back story of the characters, so you can see how far along they've transformed and what challenges they had to endure to get where they are today. Plus all the action sequences are very well done. Maggie Q was trained under Jackie Chan and does all her own stunts in Nikita :). If you like action, and a good story, be sure to check out this show.

Here is a link to one of my favorite fight scenes (embedding was disabled, so you're going to have to make the jump to YouTube): Nikita Fight Scene

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SeaNanners For President and My 15 Seconds of YouTube Excitement

I haven't written a post in a while, but really wanted to document my experience when my "A Blurb: SeaNanners Gets Serious" vid gained a lot of attention briefly. Also just wanted to give bit of a back story of why I was inspired to make this video. If you haven't seen it, I've posted it just below :)




I guess I'll start at the very beginning. For a little while I've been trying to teach myself After Effects in my spare time. It's been a challenge with the little free time I do have juggling work, planning birthdays, planning farewells, planning baby showers, being a bridesmaid, spending time with friends and family, necessary chores and life in general haha. I'm at "that age" where life is exploding in my face. Being a young adult is sure something, but I'm making the most of it while I can before my next phase of adulthood haha. Anyways continuing on :P...


For a long time I really wanted to make a motion typography video. Then one day I noticed a new SeaNanners video in my subscriptions box. I tuned in and listened to his thoughts and just found myself really happy with the message he was conveying about life - how each of us fit in the world. I've had similar thoughts before, but it was just nice to see some positivity and wisdom being spread out into the world. I don't think enough people on YouTube really do this, especially people who have huge fan bases that can take advantage of it and do some good with it. Unfortunately this particular video has been set to private and can no longer be viewed. This was most likely done as he is a YouTube partner and he used copy-written music in the background which conflicts with the partnership program rules.

Now some of you may not be familiar with SeaNanners. SeaNanners is Adam Montoya who started posting Call of Duty gameplay/commentary on YouTube and over a period of time he started gaining a huge audience because he's exceptionally good at the game and has a great attitude and outlook on life. I came across one of his commentaries on the "Most Viewed" section called Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro...I think. I found it to be very enjoyable to listen to his random thoughts about women and cooking - I guess he was asking his audience what he should make a video about, if they would want more specific CoD tips and tricks or general life chats and updates. At this point I think he was starting to open up more on YouTube and started connecting with his viewers which drew me in. I'm not huge on FPS's, not that I wouldn't play if I had the opportunity but I'm not really one to sit and watch CoD tips and tricks since I don't play that particular game. My all time fav FPS though has to be GoldenEye 007 for N64...old school I know but that game has some very fond memories for me...like feeling proud after the moment where I played through the train level without any assistance from my older sisters, making up the code phrase "do you want to kill me?" to start up a multiplayer match with my sisters...oh my dad returning the game the first time claiming the game was too violent but in reality my mom wanted him to return it since it was an impulse buy, and we ended up repurchasing it at a later date :P. ANYWAYS getting caught up in memories...moving along.


This is the part where I sound like a stalker but this story has been shared before and I find it very inspiring so don't judge me! hahaha. Adam's whole YouTube thing was purely a hobby and still is. His original career path was more focused on being a filmmaker of sorts. He entered a lot of film competitions and I believe did a lot of freelancing. The economy started to suck big time and the recession happened which hurt a lot of people including him in finding more work. Times were tough - and times are still tough as a lot of people are still affected by it now, including myself - but enough about that! So he posted CoD commentary as a hobby and his audience grew to massive proportions and continues to grow today. I think I joined on when he was around or under 100K subscribers...and now he has well over 600K subs...just insane in the membrane right? So his videos were getting massive views and he was building a very loyal audience. The great people at Machinima.com caught notice and then proposed him a position as a Segment Producer for their Respawn channel. He's been doing very well ever since - making the big move from Washington to California and being part of an awesome team at Machinima. It's great to see good things happen to good people.


So yes I'm a "fan girl" although I really dislike that term lol. I'm not waving around a flag with a banana floating in the ocean or have a huge foam finger with SeaNanners written across of it - :P those are just a few of the images I get when I hear "fan girl/boy." So I really wanted to make something special as a tribute to these inspiring words, from an inspiring person and do it as part of a project in which I taught myself motion typography and other things that is After Effects.

This project took me a period of 2 weeks of working on and off of it, so I don't know how many man hours it took. I would come home from work and try to spend time on it, and there was a weekend in there where I got sick and couldn't work on it at all. After Effects crashed on me several times, and I even had another version I exported before I released the final version on YouTube. There was a lot of reworking and figuring out things in AE, and yelling at my dear ol' computer which needs some hardware updates.

I finally completed it, tweeted it out like any one of my other vids and then it all happened. HE saw it...I figured he gets a lot of @mentions so it would be buried deep under a bunch of tweets. He saw it and I guess he liked it 'cause he retweeted it out to his 100K Twitter followers, and "liked" it on YouTube...then a wave of SeaFanners (lol) were directed to my video and it blew up in to which I have called "My 15 seconds of YouTube excitement." My reaction was not one I was expecting...I was of course ecstatic...beyond ecstatic...my heart was on hyper drive, I couldn't think straight, was purely speechless...well when I wanted to talk it was jibberish hahaha. I think I received 20K hits on the first day and it rose gradually to almost 50K hits today. It received a bunch of video honors, which I'll list some of the more significant ones below:

First Day
#1 - Most Discussed (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada
#1 - Top Favorited (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada
#1 - Top Rated (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada
#1 - Top Rated (This Week) - Film & Animation - Canada
#2 - Top Favorited (Today) - Canada
#3 - Top Favorited (Today) - Film & Animation
#5 - Top Rated (Today) - Film & Animation

Second Day
#1 - Most Discussed (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada
#1 - Top Favorited (Today) - Canada (Landed me on the homepage)

#1 - Top Favorited (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada

#1 - Top Favorited (Today) - Film & Animation

#1 - Top Rated (Today) - Film & Animation - Canada

#1 - Top Rated (This Week) - Film & Animation - Canada


I also got #35 Most Viewed in Canada, landing me on the 2nd Most Viewed page on the 2nd day...although I only got a screenshot of when I was #40.

This was when everything was just at an all time unbelievable moment of reality and the same time YouTube emailed me about putting ad-sense on the video (which I declined).

Although a short ride of thrill and excitement, I am forever grateful and will remember this forever. The thing that made this the most enjoyable was actually making someones day a little better. I received one comment that said something along the lines of "before this I was very depressed, now I'm feeling a lot happier." That means the world to me to have affected someone that greatly to change their day for the better :). My ultimate goal is to keep improving my motion graphics, vfx, video editing and etc skills so that I can bring my imagination to life and hopefully bring happiness to others. Anyways that's pretty much the full story. Thanks for reading if you've stuck around for this long :P. Hope you're all doing well!

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Bob's Burgers & Growing Up In A Restaurant

I have come across the great new animated sitcom called Bob's Burgers and I got to say it hit every funny bone in my body. Basically the show is about a family who run a struggling burger joint. The family consists of husband and wife, Bob and Linda and their 3 children Tina, Gene and Louise.

It's been a while since I've tuned in regularly to catch a new episode of an animated series. Some of my favourite animated series include Futurama (which has been kicking ass since it's resurrection), South Park (so ridiculous but truly smart comedy if you can understand the underlying messages)...I have an on and off again relationship with The Simpsons (I appreciate early seasons, but it's slowly making a comeback from it's downward spiral)...those are just a few I can think off the top of my head. I grew to hate Family Guy and it's okay if you hate me for it, but c'mon can you not agree that it lost touch after the first few seasons? And don't get me started on the abomination that is The Cleveland Show...ANYWAYS moving on!


Every episode has never failed to keep me wanting more. Sometimes I wish the episodes would run longer. I think what I love about this show the most is the different types of humour that each character offers and their relationships with one another. Whenever I see a show on TV involving a family, a lot the time it's about a very dysfunctional family. I think the enjoyability of this program is seeing a very cute and quirky family work together to solve the problems they encounter. Plus the jokes are right up my alley - it's almost like a piece of my personality is in each of these characters haha (strange I know.)

I sometimes think that this family reminds me of my own quirky family. My family used to own and operate a Chinese cuisine restaurant. You have my loving dad, my cute mom, my eccentric older sister, my funny middle sister and my carefree young self. I guess I appreciate this show more because I can identify with the feelings of running a family business. I never really worked in the restaurant though...I was just sort of there to entertain the customers, play with my sisters and train my fish named Smorgasboard, tricks.


I have many fond memories and moments growing up in that place like making old fashioned milk shakes, feeding the pacu (cousin to the piranha) prawn or chicken drumsticks, staring at the spot where a bullet bent the window, throwing a time capsule Popsicle stick up into the rafters, pranking Dwayne the delivery boy by sneaking salt into his Sprite, pretending to be a server asking customers if they wanted to sit in the smoking or non-smoking section, watch my oldest sister sing and play guitar of the New Kids on the Block version of Happy Birthday to one of the customers, sitting on top of the deep freeze and feeling tall, celebrating Chinese New Years with real dragon dancers and chinese drums, watching my dad chop veggies like a pro...and much much more.


But enough about me haha. You have to check out Bob's Burgers Sundays on FOX at 8:30 PM PST/7:30 PM C. I can't do the show any justice by writing about it, you're going to have get your butt off the computer chair and onto the couch and see for yourself. That's it from me...talking about the restaurant has made me hungry! Bye for now.

Love,
Carla

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Refreshing Ye Ol' User Name

So I've been inspired to write a new blog by fellow blogger and best friend Laura AKA bubbasmi. I haven't done so since I went away on Christmas vacation.

I just wanted to keep this post short and sweet and just acknowledge the fact that I'm slowly going through the process of switching over to my new user name "carmahdee" in place of "karmadee888". I was never really happy with karmadee888, even though how similar it is. I really didn't like the 8's...I hate having numbers in a user name, especially when I don't necessarily identify with the number other than being my favorite/lucky number.

I kind of got inspired to do this refresh because I hated the direction my two YouTube channels were going. One was mostly vlogs, a few little video compilations and very few creative skits. The other channel was used for recorded gaming sessions and entertainment news. I kept thinking how much I disliked managing two channels, but only really created the 2nd channel to acquire a better "brand."

So now that I'm re-branding I feel that carmahdee is just a simplified way of putting my first and last name together and adding "dee" for "design" or for the play on "chickaDEE" one of my favorite birds that I grew up with. In the end the 8's just seemed cluttered.

I also got inspired by a lovely YouTuber named Courtney who recently reinvented her YouTube channel and goes by "courtneypants". Her original user name was "sailme90" which she also just grew out of. Despite the fact I'm sure she loves the videos that are on her older channel, the user name just didn't mean as much to her anymore.

So this is my reasoning behind switching up the names - combining the two channels together and hopefully spitting out brand new content which is more in tune with my joy of creating video content. I want to provide entertaining video content about the stuff I like and document my life at the same time, in one place.

I know I'll lose some subscribers and all the views I've acquired over the years, but I'm okay with that. I know the ones who do enjoy what I do will stick with me and that means a lot. It was never really about the number of subscribers and view count for me anyways. Thank you to those who have supported me thus far. I truly do appreciate all your feedback, comments and "likes". You're the bomb-diggity. So on that note, please subscribe to my very empty and plain channel http://www.youtube.com/user/carmahdee and stay tuned for some fresh new content from yours truly!

Love,
Carla

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Cher Lloyd Has The X Factor and Bob's Your Teapot!

I always enjoy clips of X Factor that roll up on YouTube's Most Viewed, because they're usually quite entertaining.  They either feature some interesting auditions...

Ablisa need to hug it out

Or some amazing talent :) 

Leona Lewis has a crystal voice

Recently my attention has been captured by young contestant Cher Lloyd of 17 years, (16 when she first auditioned) from Malvern, Worcestershire.  I've been following up with every performance since she had impressed the judges during her wicked audition singing Keri Hilson's version of Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On."  She was nervous but definitely had no reason to be as all 4 judges, including guest judge Natalie Imbruglia, passed her on through to the next round.

Ripped jeans are not my thing but Cher pulls them off well.

Cher had then passed X Factors boot camp round with a risky song selection, (an arrangement of Swizz Beatz's "That Oprah" and Coldplay's "Viva La Vida") where Nicole Scherzinger was a guest judge.  It's been floating around that Cher had lied when she stated in a clip mentioning she had written some of the lyrics for the boot camp round.  In the actual performance she stuck to the lyrics of the original artists.  It only looks as if she lied because of how the show was edited.  Cher had decided to change the arrangement and cut out her own lyrics, which was a good idea in my opinion, but that doesn't make her a liar.  I just wanted to clear this up because I really dislike seeing someone being wrongfully accused.

Cher sheds a few tears after her boot camp mash up.  Don't cry for me Argentina...

Next up were the Judges Houses where Cher failed to finish performing Mike Posner's "Cooler Than Me" in front of judge Cheryl Cole and guest judge will.i.am due to a case of tonsillitis.  I could imagine how nerve racking and stressful this part of the competition is as it's the last phase before entering the live shows.  What bad timing to lose your voice.

Ricola!

Despite Cher being unable to perform, Cheryl Cole saw something special and selected her to move on in the competition, though the tabloids begged to differ.  People had believed she could not handle the pressure and wasn't ready to be in the limelight.  Cher proved them wrong as she swept the crowd during the first round of live shows singing "Just Be Good To Me" and spitting out some rhymes.

Cher proving them wrong in parachute pants.

I haven't even bothered to look at the other contestants because I like to believe Cher will win the show and become a hit among other successful recording artists.  Why do I like Cher so much?  She has a lovely personality, great voice, rap skills, and is an all around "cross the T's and dot the I's" performer.  She's the whole package bringing her own style to each song.  Most times when I watch a contestant off a talent search show, I often find myself bored.  I'm tired of hearing karaoke versions of the same old ballads.  I want something fresh and modern and Cher certainly delivers.  The competition is nearing towards the end and I wish Cher the best of luck in the hopes of winning this season's X Factor.  Anyways enough of me typing, I'll just end the post with some of my favorite performances from Miss Lloyd :).

UPDATE:  Cher Lloyd didn't win the X Factor, but she did make it to the top four finalists.  She did an amazing job throughout the competition.  She performed a mash up of  "The Clapping Song" and "Get Ur Freak On" and she performed "Where Is The Love" which led into performing a duet of "I Got A Feeling" with will.i.am.  Despite losing the competition Cher won big time by getting signed a record contract with will.i.am.  I'm excited to see where Cher's career goes from here.  Congrats Cher :).

Turn My Swag On Audition (A Great Start!)

It's A Hard Knock Life (Knock Out Rap)

No Diggity/Shout Mash Up (Killer Performance/Energy)

Sorry Seems To Be/Mocking Bird Mash Up (Stunning and Stellar)

Nothin' On You - Full Clip (Tip Top Tailors!)

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America's Next Top Relatable Model: Ann Ward/ Bullying Sucks: It Will Get Better

I never thought I'd be writing a post like this as it exposes one of my "secret shames."  You may be more familiar with the term closet geek, but I am the opposite of that, I suppose I'm a closet girly girl...sort of. I do like to dress up and play around with make-up, hair and nails but when it comes to media related things such as chick flicks, girly shows, womens magazines and "Britney Spearsesque" music I tend to be less open in sharing these things. I guess most of the reason is because most of my friends are guys who don't really care to talk outside games, geekery, sexy babes and sports. I guess this blog is a good place to release that girly build-up...in which I won't refer to as girly build-up anymore 'cause that just sounds gross lol.

So I'm coming out of the girly girl closet hahaha

So I haven't followed America's Next Top Model closely for quite some time. I watched the first two or so seasons and eventually lost interest which was probably due to some bitchiness or cattiness among the contestants or general bad feelings I got when I watched the show.  I then checked in again when one season featured shorter models, but never really followed all the way through.  This season though, Tyra Banks kicked it up 10 notches by offering some huge prizes, which included:

1) A contract with IMG Models, one of the top international modeling management companies in the world.
2) A fashion spread in Vogue Italia and an additional spread and cover of Beauty in Vogue.
3) A $100,000 contract with Cover Girl Cosmetics.
4) And some new found confidence!

It's time to get serious because the stakes are high!

So my closet girliness was intrigued and tuned in to watch the entire season of America's Next Top Model Cycle 15. I was hooked mostly because I was rooting for 19 year old, Ann Ward from Dallas, Texas, who caught my interest immediately. For me she was completely relatable. I once was her; completely shy, bullied in high school, lacked confidence, and was uniquely awkward. Apparently Ann Ward caused some controversy before the season even aired, which I didn't read about until after the season was over. A promo for ANTM had featured Tyra commenting on Ann's small waist. People from all over were flaming Tyra for promoting unhealthy bodies, which was not the case and Tyra defended her case by stating, "As a leader in celebrating and promoting healthy body image, I must admit that I regrettably didn’t see this clip before it was released to the public. But on behalf of the Top Model team, these were not the intentions, and we truly apologize for any confusion, anger or disappointment it may have caused." I guess all that complained didn't watch the "KISS MY FAT ASS!!" Tyra show episode.

Ann Ward had been teased and bullied for being thin and being blessed with a height of 6'2".  It never mattered what any of those bullies said to Ann, because she truly came out on top.  She was the first in ANTM history to receive top photo 5 times consecutively and by the end of the competition was announced the winner of ANTM cycle 15.  This was the first time I was actually overjoyed about an ANTM winner. Ann is very talented, beautiful and has an amazing future ahead of her! (Side note: I also read that Ann plays video games which makes me love her even more!)

Ann Ward's photo from the Matthew Rolston photo shoot

I know how it is to be bullied for being thin from experience and some may think it's not as bad as being bullied for being overweight but in the end bullying is bullying no matter what, where and who does it. I was bullied and teased for a lot of different things and of course this includes things I couldn't change about myself, (like being short or Asian.  How messed up is that?)  My peers were feeding me a lot of negativity and I had grown to believe that there was something horribly wrong with me. I was a thin girl growing up, but it wasn't unhealthy; it was a mixture of my parents genes, a healthy diet, my youths metabolism and a mixture of physical education. I was naturally thin, but it didn't stop girls from accusing me for being bulimic or anorexic.  For me the bullying started in elementary school; I got my first taste of how nasty girls can be, which is not far off from the movie "Mean Girls."

The lamest creation of an evil teenage girl is the 3-way call phone trap...

So I got bullied and teased by boys and girls, some I knew and some I didn't even know at all.  End of elementary and all throughout high school I was pretty insecure with myself, but it wasn't all bad.  A lot of good came from that experience.  I was able to channel all that teenage angst creatively (as seen below.)  I saw the world with different eyes and experienced it in a way that made me who I am today, so for that I am thankful.

Look what I made mom!  Me at 17 once again haha.

I attended college in the fall after high school graduation. It was a new beginning for me as I was moving to a whole new city and could gain a brand new perspective.  I knew I couldn't think so negatively about myself anymore and started transforming all of the negative thoughts into positive ones.  I started to enjoy myself more and worried less of what others thought.  I learned a whole heck of a lot during those years, met some amazingly awesome people who I consider the best people on this planet, learned to love and believe in myself and also found great love at the same time :).  I gradually transformed into someone with higher self-esteem and confidence.  It really is true when they say "It will get better."  Even though that's the message/slogan for the gay rights/anti-suicide campaign, it applies to all aspects of bullying.  I have my family and close friends to thank for being there and supporting me during my young years when I was bullied.  To anyone who is a subject to bullying, don't be afraid to talk to someone about it.  I can wholeheartedly say...it will get better and that's a promise!

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Top 5 And A Half Things That Make Me Happy

I always get contemplative around this time of year.  2010 is almost at an end, and I'll be turning a year older this upcoming Thursday.

The Chinese weren't lying when they said the Year of the Tiger would be a challenging one.  You'd think being born a Tiger would bring some luck to this year.  So yes this year has been challenging and I face another challenge even today haha...oh what surprises life likes to throw at us.  The year's not over so anything can happen right?

Though times are tough, I've been able to remain strong by keeping positive and by enjoying all the lovely things that life has to offer me.  Today I'm inspired to write up my "Top 5 And A Half Things That Make Me Happy" list (in no particular order.)


Family & Friends:   From my intermediate family, to my boyfriends family and my closest friends which I consider like my family; all of you are beautiful, inside and out.  You have all been incredibly supportive throughout this year and so inspiring.  Together we've shared some scary, sad and life changing moments.  Although times were and still are difficult, I think the strength and love we have for one another holds us together to face any challenge that may come our way.  Like my Foosball nickname in college...I aim to be a brick wall of China for you in times of trouble and dismay.  Thank you for everything, from the bottom of my heart; love you all dearly...enough with the mushiness now :P.

My Wii family..or wee family if we're talking about height :P.

Music:  What would I do without music?  Music is therapy for me.  One day when I was sharing music with one my colleagues, they said to me "so this is why you're always so happy."  If I'm ever in a less than good mood, I can always zone out with my headphones on and enter a state of bliss.  I'm happy to share any track that I like, as you can see if you follow me on Twitter.  I do enjoy singing as well, although I'm no Christina Aguilera by any means.  It's fun to sing along to a song, even if I don't know most of the lyrics...mostly I just like making up silly, random songs, which some of you have been witness to before.  Hopefully if I can get some equipment together, I can start making some of my own music too, (although none with me singing haha) :).

Playing The Beatles: Rock Band with my dad and boyfriend :).

I still have those same headphones now.  I am 17 in this pic...the years have flown by!

Food:  So this may be a huge surprise *sarcastic*.  I've been coined as the "Food Monster" by my lovely boyfriend.  I eat...I eat a lot...I eat a lot for a person my size...feeding me is like, feeding that monster you've been hiding in your closet from your parents because they wouldn't let you have that puppy and then your parents wonder where all the meat disappeared to from the deep freeze.  I have been better with my food portions as I am more health conscious and want to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  But beyond the nutritional goodness and tastiness of these foods...I love that food brings people together.  Food = lots of good times and memories.

Not so health conscious in this photo as I devour my lobster steak dinner on my dad's b-day last year.

Nature and Wildlife:  Being close to nature and seeing animals in their natural habitat is an amazing experience to share with others.  It's breathtaking to walk along a trail and come across a doe and her young (*sings* doe a deer a female deer.)  I like to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city...and just listen to the birds chirp.  You can see my reaction to the beauty of nature in this video where I luckily caught 2 blue herons at a marsh while I walked the dogs with my dad.  It was kind of a double rainbow moment I would say :P.

Movies/Film:  Movies capture a lot of the other things I love, including some of the things I can't fit on this list.  Sometimes watching the right movie can make you feel happier than before you started watching it.  Sometimes a movie will leave in stitches from laughing so hard.  Sometimes the visuals may leave you captivated and inspired to do something creative or try something new.  Sometimes the soundtrack will lead you to discover wonderful new artists to add to your play list.  I think most people have a selection of movies that they hold dear to their heart for many different reasons.  My all time fave is Spirited Away, as I've mentioned many a time.  The animation, story and music is fascinating, uplifting, and all around amazing.  This is a movie I related to when I was making the transition to college and my life away from home.  I try to share this film with as many people as I can :P...and so I leave you with a trailer of Spirited Away! 

Aha some of you may have thought I was done writing, but if you were counting then you would know I have half of something left which makes me happy.  It's not really half a thing, it's definitely a huge part of everything that brings me joy.  Here's my secret to happiness...I ultimately love making others happy.  To share music to raise each others spirits, to be in the company of others when enjoying a meal, to experience rare moments of natural beauty with others, to connect and share feelings with others through film, and overall just spending time with the people I love.  These are just little things...not big huge fancy things...but like one person said, it's the little things that count.  This extends out to people I've never met.  If I can lend money to someone in need of a meal, or help a person cross the street, any positive difference I can make to another person is what brings me happiness.  I don't think there's a better feeling than making someones day a little bit brighter, even if it's as simple as saying "hello".  So to wrap up this blog entry, I hope this made your day a little bit brighter and you too are able to find the things that make you happy when you're having a bad day or year for that matter.  Thanks for reading! 

If you should feel so inspired, I'd like to see posts from others about the things that make you happy :)...because that would make me happy :). Also this list could have been 100x longer :P.

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