Super Sunday!

First, Happy Lunar New Year! For the Vietnamese, the New Year lasts several days and we're still in the middle of celebrating! Do some good. Visit some friends. Start the year off right!

Next, I'm not viewer (or player) of sports, but I did manage a semi-Superbowl oriented dunch today (between lunch and dinner).

Grilled cheese with onions and guacamole (always homemade); side of refried beans, two olives, chips and guac, grapefruit to end; Dr. Pepper instead of beer because I need not be drowsy before bedtime tonight - too much to do!

Lastly, I bought this little number over the weekend and am currently wearing it under my robe. So cute, so vintage. Not very practical winterwear, but I'm indoors the rest of the day.

Until later! [I'm in the midst of thinking of a good end phrase - please see How I Met Your Mother 4.14 - "The Possimpible".]

February 2011: New Month, New Favorites.

TV

I haven't shared this before, so I will say: I love Parks and Recreation. It's cute, it's funny, and it's a love letter to local government. A delightful little show that had a really rocky start, but grew into itself in its second season and is blooming in its third season [which started up in January]. If you haven't seen it, go watch it! If Amy Poehler is not enough to make you watch, I am now in love with Adam Scott [not the first time] and Aziz brings a necessary kick - but let's face it, this is an ensemble show that makes great use of all its characters. It's beat Community as my favorite comedy this season. [Bored to Death is now my number two.]

As an ode to my favorite drama for the past five years - Friday Night Lights will be a beacon to me for network drama. It gets a lot of flack for being "a show about football", but as a non-sports fan, I still love this show to pieces. It's about family, growing up, and making the right choices. Brilliant acting, brilliant writing, brilliant cinematography. This show is my heart. It also might be an unpopular opinion, but I like the new cast better than the old.

Style

My go-to winter wear has been oversized sweaters and wool in general. Especially Ann Taylor Loft cape. The cape I bought last winter at a ridiculous sale price. It was the last one in the store and it was in my size [and an extra 50% off because it was in the sale section!]. I was wanting it the entire winter, and found it. I went off to Vietnam a few weeks after I bought it, so it has only this year gotten a lot of wear.

Thanks to their half of sale sales, Ann Taylor Loft and GAP have made a nice home in my wardrobe as of late, and growing.

Blog

The Coveted [edited: it is now The Coveteur] is my favorite January find. Click on a post, scroll to the bottom, click on a picture, and you have a wonderful slideshow of a fashion industry-er's favorite items and some stories behind them. An absolute thrill, and great photography! It deserves a post of its own, but because I am a horrible blogger, it gets this mention. Not only does it have amazing photography and fashion, the design of the site is unique and fresh. The front page is a collection of posts, in each post is a blurb about a fashion insider, some of their favorite inspiration from the web. Scroll down and there's a series of pictures of their things in their home. Hover over a photo and you get a blurb about the image. Click on the image and you have a sildeshow with the blurbs and images that you can control with your keyboard or by clicking! I'm in love.

Event

Uprisings in MENA [Middle East, Northern Africa] has made me glued to my twitter and grown my instaread by leaps and bounds. I'm pretty flexible about government styles, but I do believe in a responsive government. Historic moment right now. Let's let their voices heard.

This was fun! New plan: favorites post about whatever tickles my fancy. Hopefully I will be posting again soon!

Even death is not feared by those who lived wisely.

My great grandmother passed away last Sundayv (she's the eldest woman in the photos - mother of my mother's father). The subject is a quote from the Buddha.

I've learned more in the past few days about my family's religious traditions than I have the rest of the time I've been alive. In the Vietnamese-Buddhist tradition, there are many Buddhas that are venerated (sixty-two, I think). My great grandmother's funeral rituals lasted more or less two days. Rituals continue for another lifetime as kin keep the spirit of the dead alive. My father is anti-organized religion, but it was enlightening (pardon the pun) to see a religious side of my mother's family. My great grandmother was very religious; she meditated and read Buddhist prayer everyday, and even kept vegetarian for decades. The remains after her cremation left purple and green bone fragments that, according to Vietnamese lore, means she's resting with the Buddhas in the sky/heavens. This has been one of the few times I've hoped for an afterlife. My great grandmother was one of the most patient, kind-hearted, gracious person I've ever met. Even though we had massive language barrier, I could tell that she was a pure and genuine person. She was religious, but not preach-y. She grew up when women didn't go to school and was forced to marry young, having only my grandfather. She was forgiving to a fault, and I do hope she's resting peacefully now. After her long life, she deserves the best any world can show.

Tragedy in AZ

There are no words to truly express the tragedy that occurred in Tucson earlier today/yesterday. I just wanted to say that my thoughts are with the victims and their families. It's still shocking, even after all the poisonous words in our public discourse the past few years, that something like that would happen. It strikes at the core of our values as a democratic nation, that something as earnest and routine as meeting with your representative can end so horrifically. That a Federal Judge can be stopping by after church to say hello and a nine year old girl, recently elected to her student council body and invited by her neighbor for a learning experience in democracy can suddenly not be with us anymore. One of the most important aspects of a republic like ours is trust, and I feel like that is rapidly dissolving.

We can disagree without being disagreeable.

Please let someone good come out of this tragedy. Please let us learn that we cannot replace civil political debate with violent rhetoric. Please let us learn.

Hello Twenty-Eleven

“Before, this city was like a geeky kid sister, and now it's getting noticed by all the older boys. We've got curves now.” [Helena Andrews, one of BLTWY's 35 under 35 who is changing Washington D.C.]

2011 means a lot to me as a soon-to-be college graduate. So I, more than some, hope 2011 shapes out to be one of my best years yet. I might still consider myself the geeky kid sister (despite being an older sister), but by the middle of the year, I hope to be sitting in or around D.C., making a life for my twenty-something self.

I've also started a new tumblr for excerpts of news articles and some commentary if anyone wants to check it out.

Monday Music; Water & Candy

Another blog reboot fail. One day I will make it past two posts!

I did manage to make a mix for a friend, so here it is:

01/ All Summer; Kid Cudi, Best Coast and Rostam of Vampire Weekend

02/ All Day Day Light; The Morning Benders

03/ Release Me; The Like

04/ Boyfriend; Best Coast

05/ Paris (Ooh La La); Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

06/ Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin; Mayer Hawthorne

07/ Bullfighter Jacket; Miniature Tigers

08/ Eat That Up, It's Good For You; Two Door Cinema Club

09/ Prince of Tacoma; BOAT

10/ The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade; The Joy Formidable

11/ Generator ^ First Floor; Freelance Whales

12/ Animal; Neon Trees

13/ The Ghost Inside; Broken Bells

14/ Suzie; A B & The Sea

15/ Camera Talk; Local Natives

16/ Home; She & Him

17/ The Cave; Mumford & Sons

18/ What's In It For?; Avi Buffalo

19/ Ghosts; Laura Marling

20/ Older; Band Of Horses

21/ Science Fiction (Demo); Timothy Rabbit

This mix is longer than my usual because it was originally intended to be a birthday mix. It ended up being five months late, but better late than never, right?

I have been keeping better tabs of what I read and see on the internet, so maybe that will help in organizing and getting posts up. I'm also considering that I need to cut down on sleep to get more things I want to do in my life.

**Maybe I'll even let my friend take pictures of me again, but probably not because I am the most awkward model in the world.

TV Round Up: 30 Rock, The Office, Fringe, and Undercovers

Hello patient readers! I'm going to try to start a better posting schedule so I can refresh my brain and organize my thoughts better. Of course, this is not the best week for me to be starting, but we shall see how it passes!

Out of schedule, I would like to share a few little snippit thoughts on some shows this week. This Thursday in particular was amazing for me as a viewer.

30 Rock, The Office, and Fringe were my far my favorites. Those episodes are some of my favorite of the entire series of the shows thus far.

30 Rock because I am a sucker for politics and I loved Queen Latifah's Representative Regina Bookman. I hope she comes back. The race dialogue in the show was especially interesting as I just finished reading Watching Race by Herman Gray that dissects presentations of blackness in television in the 1980's and early 90's, including the role of exceptionalism (Twofer) that is explored in the episode.

The Office was just pitch perfect for me. I'm one to still have high regard for the show since Jim and Pam got together. I think the writing is still superb week-to-week, even if my fan enthusiasm has waned, but this week just filled me with joy. Seeing Andy sing, the unrequited aspect of his feelings for Erin, seeing Jim and Pam grow up, Michael's silly shenanigans, Darryl. It all just worked so perfectly. I laughed, I ached, I did all the things that needs to be done. It probably comes down to seeing Andy in Sweeney Todd.

And Fringe. Playing with the new alt!world is allowing the show to grow more than it would have normally. Watching Olivia try to retain her old memories and getting to know the alt!world is more memorizing than I expected. It's like seeing another side to the characters you know and love.

As far as least favorite, Undercovers was underwhelming for me this week. I am a fan of the lightheartedness of the show, and the spy genre in general, but this week was flatter than the other two. I'll keep on it because I still find the show charming and cute, nothing serious to wrap my brain around, but I am finding their trope a little trite and I don't know how long I can keep it up if every episode is the same. Let's see some development! Just a little? It doesn't have to be a super serious spy show to have some substance.

These are not the only shows I watch, but I just felt so much love for these episodes I had to share.

{Photos from FOX and NBC}