omg

I just found out that the pinkberry jingle

(p-i-n, k-b-e, r-r-y, Pinkbeerrrryy!
Sorry ice cream, I'm dreaming of a different dessert...)

was written by Tigra, of the late 80's-90s Hip Hop duo L'Trimm. You may know thme from their popular, "Cars That Go Boom".

We like the cars, the cars that go boom,
We're Tigra and Bunny and we like the boom.

OMG, Classic. I love VH1's 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs.

vote

Obama 2008.

dear angela,

It's been 2 years and 12 days since you died and 2 years and 11 days since I spent a crazy day with our boss and your friends driving through the city, trying to find you and figure out what had happened to you.

One of your old name tags is still hanging on my cork board. It's my lame attempt to pay homage to you. Sometimes people mention you in passing, like yesterday, when our receptionist was talking about funerals. Guess what? We moved up to the main floor a few months after you died. Maybe it's because it was too quiet in that secluded office space without you there. I didn't want to sit in that space and look over at your empty chair. Our old space, now painted a happy yellow, is a childcare room and kitchen. When I go in there to pick up my lunch from the fridge, I try not to think about you, sitting in the corner. But I always do.

I think about you a lot, especially when I'm trying to put together a research plan. Nerdy, right? I wish you were here to help me think about how to make it relevant to our campaign and how to make it fun for us data nerds. You convinced me to take this job, telling me that it would be fun: You would teach me how to do data analysis and I would help write the papers. We were going to be a mean research duo.

Now, I'm not even sure how I feel about this job. I wish you were here. Maybe if you were still here, then work would be fun. Or at least you would be able to tell me honestly if I should still be working here. Maybe you would have already left to take a better job like you had always talked about.

Today I heard that song by Sia that we both loved to listen to over and over again in the mornings, while we were working. Sometimes I think that the lyrics were a message from you about what had happened to you that day you died. "Help, I've done it again..." I went to her concert a few months after you died and I cried through the entire song. I still get emotional when I hear it. It reminds me that you died before your time.

I think some of my passion for this job died the day you did. I had finished my second full week when you left us. When you died, it knocked the wind out of me. And now, 2 years later, I'm still thinking about what could have been. Some people might think that I should get over the death of a co-worker. Yeah, maybe I should have already been over it. But you were a friend and a mentor of sorts. And I never had the chance to thank you.

Thank you Angela, I miss you.

i'm a nerd, part 6735631

Yesterday, I was givine a presentation to new staff in our office (a new intern and a new organizer) on the research I did for our latest campaign. Ten minutes into the presentation, the organizer was staring at me with "zombie eyes" -- the look that you get when you are sleeping during class but trying to keep your eyes open.

Yes, my job even bores my co-workers.

After the presentation, I made myself feel better by decorating my office space with "rap graphs":

quote of the day courtesy of messy danny

"Let me go on the record with something: I went to a pretty good undergraduate university, graduated in the top ten percent of my law school class (and was the editor of the school's entertainment and sports law review), and am a decent enough writer that the good folks at Huffingtonpost.com allow me to blog, and yet I don't want someone "just like me" to be president. I want someone better than me. And 99.9999 percent of us should, too." -- Mitchell Bard, Huffington Post

favorite headline of the day

Comcast Forces Illini Fans To Suffer Through Northwestern Game[Comtastrophe]

It was really funny to see this headline on my blog feed today.

http://consumerist.com/5050643/comcast-forces-illini-fans-to-suffer-through-northwestern-game

because alaska is next to russia

My favorite part of this clip is toward the end when Samantha Bee breaks it down:

coming to terms with 30

I'm watching the mtv v1deo mus1c awards and I only know half of the performers/celebrities. I like the DJ that they play right before the commercials but everything else is kind of... boring (and loud). That pink performance was cool, though.

I'm so glad that I've stepped into the next decade. It's a little bit sad that I'm no longer in the mtv target demographics, but I'm starting not to care.

Cheers to my 30s!

I gotta go to sleep now, old ladies need their beauty rest.

organize THIS, gop.

I'm so offended by the GOP's (Guil1an1 & Pa1in) mockery of community organizing. I work at an organization where community organizing is at the heart of who we are and what we do. To use it as a punchline to mock Obama is insulting to me.

We community organize because the values that many members of the GOP espouse -- small government, reduction of social services, institutional racism (yeah i said it bitches), privatization, globalization, etc. is what has led to the disintegration of many American inner cities. We do it because people are poor in this country, have become disinfranchised and are suffering.

The GOP boldly and ignorantly mocked one of the most noblest professions for the sake of conservative rhetoric & to get a cheap cheer. Even the Dems gave McCain props for his military service.

I wasn't going to write about this. I wanted to be nice to conservatives and not throw down, but since you started it, all I can say right now is:

You can suck it, GOP. Obama is going to kick ASS.

fav dnc moment

I got chills when John Legend and will.i.am performed the Yes We Can song with the Agape Choir Thursday evening.

The original video:

forever changed

I was a part of history this week.



This week was filled with tons of emotional highs and lows. I am emotionally exhausted. Right now I'm feeling simultaneously inspired and discouraged, disheartened and energized. I think the process of attending the DNC really wore me down, but sitting in the stands listening to 0bama and the other leaders will be something that I will take with me my entire life. I am changed. And, as cheesy as this sounds, I hope that change will be coming.



This week, I waved the flag more furiously and passionately that I ever have before, I was overcome with genuine emotion at listening to the star spangled banner or America the Beautiful.

We saw this painted on a wall in the neighborhood where we were staying:


We finally (!!!) got hall passes for press, which allowed us to get into 1nvesco to hear 0bama on Thurs.


I'll post more in the next days or so.

denver

It's been a crazy several days in Denver. I was supposed to get blogger credentials but totally got screwed over and so my friend & I have been hustling trying to work our networks (or rather, hers) to get credentials, to no avail. It sucks because minsoo was recruited to come to the dnc and then they totally flaked and acted as if we were asking for too much. If we knew we weren't expected to get any passes, we wouldn't have shown up. Something fishy is going on. When they told us about the credentials issue I was trying to keep it cool, channeling Minsoo ("What would Minsoo do? What would Minsoo do?") and not wanted to disrespect aam by getting pissed off. I almost cried out of frustration yesterday. Luckily I've met some good people along the way who were able to shed some light on the situation.

Despite the credential thing, it's all been an incredible experience just to be in the middle of this historic convention. I'll blog more fully when I get home. I think most of my blogging mojo will go to AAM this week.

There's a lot of law enforcement out and about, which doesn't make me feel safer. It makes me feel like something bad's going to breakout soon:


There are a bunch of booths with funny stuff... not DNC related.


How I love the crazy hippies:


We snagged passes to the All-delegate party. We met a lot of APIs from all over the country. It was pretty sweet. We've been crashing or following groups of Asians to parties all week. I'm pooped. Political parties aren't terribly fun because everyone's either old or already with their peeps. But at least there's some free booze.


I ran into the former ED from Public Allies, who's a blogger! I was totally surprised and it was really good to see her. I do not know what is going on with my bangs.


I'll post more pics later. By the way, I want to be friends with Michelle Obama. She is friggin awesome. The kids are adorable too.

whoa....

Beginning Monday, hundreds of bloggers will descend on Denver to see Barack Obama accept his party’s nomination....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/fashion/24blog.html?ei=5070&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1219593626-8sFZVUFM+lBxtYxdAylPxA

... This is me in a few short hours.

My cousin lent me his lighter laptop and aircard. I bought a new laptop friendly bag. I don't have a data phone, but I feel as blogger-ific as I'm going to get.

I'm in line to interview Ka1 Penn, Dan1el Dae K1m, Tam1lyn T0m1ta & Ke11y Hu. I'm sure Minsoo is super jealous. I hope I can represent AAM and do it right. My friend who is really making connections for interviews has been evoking my name (as AAM's partner) to get us in the door.

I'm getting really nervous. I kind of wished now that I had taken a real vacation.

denver here i come!

I just booked my ticket to go to the Dem0cratic Nati0nal C0nvention. I'm so excited! It all happened so fast -- Minsoo got an invitation to be a blogger at the convention but couldn't get time off work so in his place, I'm going as an "AAM blogger." I love my husband! My coworkers are also going on their own and they may help hook me up with floor tickets, which is going to be even more incredible.

I am really excited.

office enemy... part 2 (!)

On Tuesday, the former executive assistant to the executive director showed up at our office... to work.

I know. What??

Her keys and clicker for the parking lot gate were taken from her on Friday, so she couldn't get in. When she arrived, she called our main phone line from her cell phone. D asked if she could let into the building "to go to work". The admin director who answered the phone said, "No, my understanding was that you quit last week." Apparently D still did not understand/would not accept the fact that: Quitting = calling your boss, telling off the boss and telling the boss that you are "leaving" and then hanging up without listening to her. D was confused, but finally left and hasn't been back since. I hope she got the message this time.

All of us are so on edge at work because D is so unstable. Today, my coworker was loudly calling up the stairs asking to see the receptionist and we all freaked out. I was on the phone and I immediately told that person I would call them back. My other coworker and I ran down stairs in a panic. We thought that "someone" might be back and trying to get into the building. It turns out she needed help finding something from the closet.

office enemy... resolved?

In January I shared that I think I have an office enemy, or at least I did until last Friday.

Apparently my officenemy (the "executive assistant to the executive director" as she always introduces herself, I will now refer to her as D) was fired or quit --we're still not sure -- on Friday afternoon, almost directly as a result of a conversation I had with my executive director on Friday morning.

On Friday, she was eavesdropping on a private, closed door conversation that the development coordinator and I were having with our ED. (What kind of messed up s*** is that?) Eavesdropping D thought that our ED told us "to keep [her] in line." However, what was really said was that she thought D would be in charge of the calendar because "she can keep people in line."

D confronted the development coordinator, who tried to clarify, but she was having none of it. She called the ED, told her off like a crazy woman and then told the ED that she was leaving and hung up on her. Our ED took that to mean that D was quitting so she called the receptionist to make sure that D left her keys and garage door opener when she left. When D left, the receptionist told her to leave her key and opener and then D said, "Does this mean that I'm fired?"

I didn't find all of this out until this morning when I huddled with my coworkers and pieced together the events of Friday. We came to the conclusion that the crazy lady just got herself fired/quit for getting paranoid while eavesdropping on a conversation. Sad and crazy.

*I changed the name to D, although I prefer to refer to her as she commonly introduced hersel -- the exec. assistant to the exec. dir or eatted

word on the street

Yesterday my co-worker pulled me aside after a meeting and told me that she had heard I was looking for a new job. I expressed my surprise, not because I was surprised that someone claimed I was looking for a new job, because she had heard that I was looking for a job. Apparently, my co-worker said "that was the word on the street."

The street??

I wasn't upset that people were talking about me looking for a new job. What surprised me is that my name is now associated with "a word on the street." Since when did my network expand to "the streets"? And where are these "streets" located? Oh snap, I think I've just been accepted into LA's non-profit "streets."

Anyway, word on the street is that wai-ling is looking for a new job. Only, wai-ling doesn't have any job prospects, only a bad attitude about her current job. And now she's writing about herself in third person, a sure sign that wai-ling needs a vacation.

OMFG (I usually hate this acronym, but I'm using it because it's so appropriate)

There's a crazy-ass story that's been circulating in all of the local papers and tv news programs, my coworkers were even talking about it: Two 78-year-old twin sisters have spent years feeding rats in their pacific palisades home. Pacific Palisades is one of the richest cities in LA and probably in the entire country. Movie stars live there. And apparently so do hundreds of rats and their old-lady enablers. When I heard that story, I was amused because I like the thought of old ladies sticking it to the richies. But serious, I was also totally grossed out and wondering who the hell does that sort of thing. What type of person do you have to be?

Well, unfortunately, I think I know the answer to my questions. Because, as it happens, I KNOW the crazy rat ladies (or rather, one of them). One of the sisters was an elementary school teacher who worked with my mom. I didn't have her as a teacher, but I was at the school when she was there and my mom taught with her! My mom is friends with a lot of my old teachers; in fact, many of them came to my wedding and even my bridal shower! My mom never really kept in touch with Ms. Barthel, but a part of me wonders that if she had, the rat lady could have been at my wedding.

My mom told me that Ms. Barthel used to feed animals at school and always took in stray cats. I wonder if she had already become the rat lady when she was teaching school. Ew. I'm so grossed out right now.

An illustration from the LA Weekly which did a cover story on the crazy rat ladies:


Ms. Barthel, aka rat lady talking to the local newscaster on tv. She has sported her trademark glasses, scarf and hat look since the 1980s at least.


My name is wai-ling and....

mailbox! mailbox! mailbox!

Enjoy this nerd video. Very amusing.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

the blogathon is finished.

Hannah is done with the bar! She finished yesterday. I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, but congrats Hannah! Yay, you are done and I am proud to call you J.D.... hopefully esq. soon. Is that what you can call yourself when you pass the bar? Anyway, yay for you!

Goodbye daily blogging. We did it... kind of. I'm gonna go take a blogging break.