Miss Galaxy's First Concert

Currently Listening: Mastermind, Do You Remember (Deltron 3030)

Last night, I was at the San Francisco Mezzanine for a concert titled "Scratch and Surf" featuring

You know what's great?
Rocking a crazy wig because you can.

Deltron 3030. They are an alternative hip hop group comprised of "Del the Funky Homosapien", "Dan the Automator", and "Kid Koala." Interestingly enough, it was the first music concert I'd ever been to (aside from orchestral shows, etc) and it also happened to be a fundraiser for "Surf For Life." The Surf For Life staff projected a surfing video promoting their charitable activities and mission before the main event, which was pretty cool. I'm glad my first concert was a charity event. (I also wish I knew how to surf...)

I suppose not many people know that I'm a bit of a hipster when it comes to hip hop... I had a phase back in the day where I listened to a lot of 'underground' stuff because of Samurai Champloo/Nujabes. So I guess my 'eclectic' taste in music has led me to a lot of great beats and Deltron 3030 is no exception. I just like to get funky funky funky

One thing I looked forward to at the concert was the opportunity to enjoy live music--really enjoy it. Having never been to a concert, I'd only heard of what a fun experience it is to be immersed in the music. With rap/hip hop concerts, especially, everything is very lyric and rhyme-centric surrounded by good beats and sound creation. Golden Age, the opening performance, was very good at getting the crowd involved and getting creative with his songs. Do Dat and Malicious Lee performed many lyrically powerful songs.

When Deltron 3030 finally came on, we were well-primed for what was in store. Lyrically, Del's rhymes were always on point, futuristic, and intelligent. Del didn't have the sort of stage presence of Golden Age but he makes up for it with his skill, which is key (definitely key!). The surrounding talent, Dan the Automator, who was basically drunk on the Giants' World Series championship, brought a lot of life and humor to the concert. His automator is also really bemusing. (We gotta have champaigne on stage. Let's go Giants!) And finally, they took a scratch break to highlight Kid Koala - sickkkkkk DJ. One of my favorite parts... for various reasons.

Anyways, at the end of the concert (after Deltron's encore performances of "Do You Remember" and "Clint Eastwood (Gorillaz)"), my new friends told me that, for my first concert ever, the bar has been set very high for future concerts. For one thing, the venue was not very crowded (I presume because the Giants world series was on and because they are more alternative/underground) and, overall, the venue was just really nice. Also, I had good company. My ears were ringing afterwards but I was so glad for the spontaneous invite.

 Bottom line: best. concert. experience. ever.

Meep thanks to this dangerous guy for inviting me <3

Favorites:

1. Kid Koala's scratch interlude :)
2. Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood (Deltron 3030 cover)
3. Deltron 3030 - Positive Contact

4. Deltron 3030 - Do You Remember

5. Golden Age (Do Dat & Malicious Lee) - Growth

6. Deltron 3030 - 3030

It was so hard to find the songs from Golden Age since they are relatively unknown. But I found a link to their bandcamp.com!

Twenty-Four

[UPDATED]

The Tonight Show Cast Party: I'm feeling 22(+2)!
August 9, 2014

A certain fabulous Elaine Su and I hosted a "Tonight Show Cast Party" and used my birthday as an excuse. It was also a hipster party. And a celebrity party. And a bad pun night party. And a lip sync battle party.

First order of business: I have to gush about the gorgeous Elaine who offered to host the party at her apartment. I don't know what I would have done without her! How can someone be so crazy smart and fashionable and pretty and a great baker and a good friend all in one? I HAVE NO IDEA but she is all that and more. She even hosted another party the next day at her apartment for which she was able to make fruit tarts and rose-lychee macarons. Yay for an awesome BioE PhD friend! <3

Okay, now that I've finished gushing.....

Clothespin Name Tags

House rules stated no shoes and you must wear a name tag. Anticipating friends from high school (at least those who happened to be in the Bay Area), from MTM, from M.Eng, and from the BioE PhD program, it was necessary to make sure the ice could instantly be broken.

What better way than to make people have bad punny gag names? This easily gives people something to talk and laugh about. 

Note: The use of clothespins was a creative take I had on hipster name tags. The use of pun names was inspired by a friend's "end of the world" party I attended in Hong Kong.

Among many others, here are some of the names that were used:

- Sarah Bellum (a nerdy science crowd favorite <3)

- Anita Mann

- Anita Job

- Alec Bond (have you met alec bond?)

- Nick Bond (do you know nick bond? io nick bond! - okay, this is a stretch... I tried...)

- Joe King

- It Sake

- Robin Banks

- Mary A. Richman

- Justin Thyme (J.T.)

- Justin Case

Attire: Hipster or Celebrity? I'm confused.

You know, I think I was a tad too ambitious about the theme. Maybe I just wanted to add more appeal by saying you could also dress up as a hipster. Or a celebrity hipster. Or I made it easy on people by telling them to dress smart casual. In any case, I'm not a stickler about themes (though I think being picky about it is necessary in some cases) - I just wanted to see people and have fun.

Note: People love dressing up as hipsters.

 

Lip Sync Battle

(Inspired by Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show lip sync battles)

I ascribe to the idea that one should strive to:

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching.

It's overquoted, but I think it speaks to being unabashed about who you are in all your combination of awkwardness, awesomeness, and uniqueness. For me anyway, lip syncing is a way to embrace that.

We implemented this by going around before the first round of actual battle time and asking them what they wanted to lip sync. Then, I added the lyric videos onto a youtube playlist (Round 1). I went first! Then other people (possibly inebriated) went. By popular opinion, Round 2 was implemented after a few minutes of "intermission" - during which more people signed up and re-entered.

I wish I had provided prizes on the spot. But alas - better late than never... here are my selections!

Lip Sync Battle Champions by popular vote/cheer/laughter during the contest (the ones that get bragging rights)

Slim Shady and Justin Thyme aka JT (Phillip and Eric) sealed their victories with a collaboration of The Lonely Island's (ft. Justin Timberlake) "Dick in a Box (Uncensored)"

--- Awards---

[Best Dramatic Balladeer] Mary A. Richman (Greg) takes this with his performances of "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"

[Best Duo] "Let it Sync In"'s (Britta and Julea) with their sync of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"

[Best Syncer] Andrew with his syncs of Rebecca Black's "Friday" and Will Smith's "Getting Jiggy Wit It"

[Best Collaboration] Anisha, Hector, Julea, Britta, and Andrea as the Spice Girls for "Wannabe"

[Most Underperforming] Truman during the Oxnerd sync of Taylor Swift's "22"

[Most Spontaneous] Slim Shady (Phil) gave a hilarious sync of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady"

[Most Crowd Pleasing] Sasha Grey (Lisa) with her rendition of Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" (she actually sang along!)

[Most Sung-Along-To Sync] Tied between Eric's sync of "Call Me Maybe" and Jenny and Eric's "I was forced to do this and ended up doing the whole song" sync of "Let it Go" from Frozen 

[Most Heartwrenching Sync] John's  sync of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls"

[Most Fitting to the Party Theme Sync] Lisa, Han, Truman, and Andrea (Oxnerd sync of Taylor Swift's 22)

Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. - Sam Walton

Tahoe with the BEASTs

Do you think I'm cool yet?

Tahoe was probably the best experience I've had all year... though I did spend ungodly amounts of money on this ski/snowboarding trip.

Emotionally, this was a huge step for me. There was hardly any service (curses T-mobile!) at the cabin and I was learning to detach myself from my old life. I was focused on bonding with the people closest to me and improving on the snowboard.

By the end of the day, I had fallen more times than I could count but I never felt discouraged. I kind of see it at rather analogous with life and taking on new challenges in general. Snowboarding has a pretty steep learning curve but apparently there's supposed to be a "magical moment" where "linking turns" just clicks. I'm going to get it next time around. My goal is to buy a season pass when I'm in Chicago and make that my hobby! I shall conquer my fear!!!

On the way home from the trip, I chatted with the other BioE students about futures and what put us on our paths in life - how our 20s are really for self-discovery and change and chasing after dreams. It was such a reminder of the person I once was about two years ago. Maybe about a year ago, I entered a bad place -  I was so comfortable with the way life was and I was scared about my future that I clung too hard to the certain things in my life. In a sense, I was lost without knowing I was lost.

Everything changed two months ago. I was starting to make my way into a better place and then... I lost something really special to me. It was a kicker for me. I had to make myself a better person and wake up because I could end up losing out on important things again in the future.

Interestingly, my friend caught me when I said "I suck at this game" (Cards Against Humanity). He told me, "Why do you say that? You shouldn't say that, don't put yourself down." I looked at him incredulously since I had never mentioned to him how hard I was trying to fight my self-depreciation habits and laughed nervously saying "you seem so serious..." He was a bit hard to read but he said , "No, but I am! You shouldn't put yourself down. What matters is you have fun while you play with us." I know it was just a game - but the truth was, putting myself down in little things is exactly what makes it so easy to put myself down for bigger things.

I finally feel like I'm making progress towards a happy place. I started making baby steps one direction--it was painful and uncertain--and while I was walking towards there, I kept looking back, thinking that there was some way I could fix it and run back. At every step it felt like I was going nowhere and at times I would take a step back. But there was no point in all of that. So after cycling through the 5 stages of grief ten bajillion times, I just couldn't look back anymore. I guess I sort of looked at Tahoe, where I was with my good friends and at a place where I would be relatively disconnected from social media and the world at large, to kickstart my way to a better me. And the truth was - I was able to live my life happily and perfectly okay with myself.

I think I'm starting to come to terms with the uncertainty of the future and that I'm okay with maintaining that sliver of hope in the meanwhile. It's my choice, I guess, and I'm okay with that. Now I need to make sure that I won't be disappointed in the end. I think that I'll be okay if nothing happens and if one day I find that all is lost. I am okay and at peace with the idea that we are merely "open to the possibilities" and if there is nothing, then okay. The only way I can find this peace is if I truly start to love myself and, plain and simple, just be awesome.

March Madness!

Thank you, life, for teaching me what the term "March madness" means.

I kid. I don't mean NCAA March madness. But this week has just been plain crazy. [An aside on basketball: I went to another nail biting Cal game vs Colorado (I seem to have a penchant for going to really close, exciting games. My first NBA game was OKC @ Warriors and my first Pac-12 game was Arizona @ Cal.) to secure the 4th seed in the Pac-12 tournament! Cal will face off with Colorado again to try and make it to the NCAA. I hope they make it! That would really cap off a great year at Cal for me.]

Emotional events aside, I realized that I suddenly have a lot to do. Kinda stressful. Kinda cortisol-ful...There has been a lot of lab. Almost everyday with a new side project my company is working on. But I'm happy to work hard since we might get a publication out of it. So that's exciting! Our other capstone work is kind of on hold since we're waiting on some regulatory approval.

Then there's my new volunteer job, which I am dedicating a full day to tomorrow. Yikes! And I will probably stay longer because traffic is going to be stupid across the Bay Bridge. 8:30am - 7pm in San Francisco...

Then there's my classes: I have a pretty interesting project for strategic management (I just had a midterm today) but it's a lot of work, a lot of site visits, a lot of interviews, and a lot of research. The class has a lot of interesting readings but readings are still readings. And I have a lot to study for with a midterm coming up in Vaccinology next week (freaking out about that one). There's also a final report for one of my classes that just ended at UCSF. And then there's this really annoyingly tedious-yet-still useful-so-fine-I'll-do-it engineering leadership class with weekly case readings and homework assignments.

The plus side of all this craziness is a "work hard, play hard" scenario. I've been going to the gym a lot and several of my friends have noticed that I've lost a lot of weight and slimmed down. That's exciting and good for my confidence. It's nice that people can see the results of my hard work at the gym and self-discipline in my eating habits. I also just think it's the way I carry myself now... but anyways.

The Color Run is this Saturday and I am pumped! Just bought some cool wayfarer sunglasses on Amazon to fit our "Mighty Morphin Powder Rangers" theme and our friend PJ bought some white sweatbands. It's gonna be awwwshum! Still have to buy knee high white socks and, as per usual, a disposable water-proof camera!

The weekend after is Tahoe with Spicy Cilantro and the other BioE PhDs! I haven't gone snowboarding since 2012 when I went with Hieu, so this should be interesting. I hope my knee can hold up but I'm pretty confident I'm gonna get the hang of the board this time- as long as I don't injure myself (knock on wood).

Shortly after Tahoe, I'll head down to SoCal to finally spend time with the family. And maybe watch some Reduced Shakespeare (if I can afford it, that is...).

Updates on all this stuff later! With all this business, I haven't had time to start on the puzzle I bought for my "free time." Hah..