As you know, I am slowly but surely creating Twilight fans one friend at a time.
To date, I have successfully introduced Twilight to 18 people.
I'll have you know that I'm very proud of that number! It's a big deal, because it's one thing to recommend a book to someone. It's another to actually get them to pick it up and read it. (It's unfortunate, but people are busy and don't always have time to sit down and read. ) But it is an entirely different thing to recommend a book, get them to not only read it but also finish it--but not just finish it either, but to actually enjoy and love the book just as I did. Yep, it's a big deal, and I'm excited that I get to share my enthusiasm and obsession over Twilight with others.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Stephenie & Grunion
I had a very eventful evening yesterday...
Meeting Stephenie Meyer
First off was the Stephenie Meyer (author of the wonderful Twilight series) event Kellyn & I attended at Torrance High School. She is on a tour doing talks & signings for her new novel, The Host. The event was starting at 6:30pm, with doors opening at 5:00pm, so Kellyn and I decided to arrive a little early. We arrived at about 4:30pm and were already #s 291 and 292 in line. After two hours of chatting and waiting, Stephenie came out and talked for about twenty minutes. She answered some questions about The Host (my favorite question was "Why cheetos?"), answered some about Twilight, and then the signing began. She was personalizing our Host books, so to make it easy, we had to place a post-it with our name on it on the book. So this is how my meeting Stephenie Meyer went:
Stephenie: opens the book and reads my name, then looks up, smiles, and says "Hi Jane. I love that name."
Me: (nervous, not really sure what to say) "Thanks"
Stephenie: "Do you relate to Jane in the book at all?"
Me: (nervous, can't believe she's still talking to me, and still not really sure what to say!) "Haha, no"
Stephenie:(jokingly) "So, you don't really like to make people feel pain?"
Me: (oh my gosh, she's still talking to me!) "Haha, no not really"
Kellyn: (talking about me) She's converted our whole office into reading your books
Stephenie: "Oh, so you're the dealer there, huh?"
Me: (nervously) "Yeah"
Oh my goodness, I was tongue tied and couldn't say more than a few words to the woman--what is wrong with me?!? LOL. In my imagination, if I were to have a short conversation with her, I would've at least said something witty. Oh well, guess I can't be witty under pressure...The part when she called me "The Dealer" was so funny, because a couple of friends have compared reading the Twilight series to using drugs. (I think Anitza once said "Jane, if you were a drug dealer, I'd be dead." I'm not a drug dealer, but I'm a Twilight dealer, which can be just as addicting =P) So we left with our newly signed books (Kellyn & I both got our copies of The Host and Twilight signed) at about 8:20pm. There were probably about 1000 people at the event, so I'm not sure how late those poor people had to stay until they got their books signed. And poor Stephenie, having to write her name over and over again a few thousand times. She had a mountain of sharpies right next to her, so I wonder how many of them she actually went through. All in all, it was a very fun event and extremely exciting to meet one of my favorite authors. Yay!
-Kellyn & I at the event (At first, they were allowing pictures with no flash to be taken, so we took this self portrait. But they changed their minds shortly after this was taken, and NO pictures were allowed anymore, so I couldn't get any during her talk)
Grunion Run
Later that night, my nerdy bio friends and I went on another grunion run. Although the grunion will still be coming around the next few months, this was the last official night for the Grunion Greeters research. This time, our monitoring time was 10:45pm-12:45am. Since we didn't see a single thing the last time we went out, we were *hoping* to see something, anything this time, even if it was one little scout. After roaming up and down the beach for about 45 minutes, we finally saw some grunion! At first, a handful at a time were coming up. We counted about 50. Then the numbers started increasing into the hundreds. And kept increasing. And increasing. There were thousands! The length of the beach was eventually covered in the little silvery fish--the females digging their back ends into the sand and laying their eggs, and the males flopping around and fertilizing the eggs. IT. WAS. AWESOME. We were all so giddy, running up and down the beach to look at all of them--it was the first run that Alicia, Emily & I have ever seen, and the biggest run that Ann & Shannon have ever seen, so it was a pretty exciting thing for all of us. By the end of our monitoring time, the run had lasted for over an hour, and they were still on the beach when we left.
-This is what it looks like, but imagine the length of beach like this.
-Me, Emily, Alicia, Ann & Shannon with the grunions behind us. We are holding up our five fingers because this run was rated a W-5 (for our monitoring, we have to rate the runs from a W-0 to a W-5, five being the ultimate of the grunion runs. And that's what we saw, the big kahuna of runs.)
Meeting Stephenie Meyer
First off was the Stephenie Meyer (author of the wonderful Twilight series) event Kellyn & I attended at Torrance High School. She is on a tour doing talks & signings for her new novel, The Host. The event was starting at 6:30pm, with doors opening at 5:00pm, so Kellyn and I decided to arrive a little early. We arrived at about 4:30pm and were already #s 291 and 292 in line. After two hours of chatting and waiting, Stephenie came out and talked for about twenty minutes. She answered some questions about The Host (my favorite question was "Why cheetos?"), answered some about Twilight, and then the signing began. She was personalizing our Host books, so to make it easy, we had to place a post-it with our name on it on the book. So this is how my meeting Stephenie Meyer went:
Stephenie: opens the book and reads my name, then looks up, smiles, and says "Hi Jane. I love that name."
Me: (nervous, not really sure what to say) "Thanks"
Stephenie: "Do you relate to Jane in the book at all?"
Me: (nervous, can't believe she's still talking to me, and still not really sure what to say!) "Haha, no"
Stephenie:(jokingly) "So, you don't really like to make people feel pain?"
Me: (oh my gosh, she's still talking to me!) "Haha, no not really"
Kellyn: (talking about me) She's converted our whole office into reading your books
Stephenie: "Oh, so you're the dealer there, huh?"
Me: (nervously) "Yeah"
Oh my goodness, I was tongue tied and couldn't say more than a few words to the woman--what is wrong with me?!? LOL. In my imagination, if I were to have a short conversation with her, I would've at least said something witty. Oh well, guess I can't be witty under pressure...The part when she called me "The Dealer" was so funny, because a couple of friends have compared reading the Twilight series to using drugs. (I think Anitza once said "Jane, if you were a drug dealer, I'd be dead." I'm not a drug dealer, but I'm a Twilight dealer, which can be just as addicting =P) So we left with our newly signed books (Kellyn & I both got our copies of The Host and Twilight signed) at about 8:20pm. There were probably about 1000 people at the event, so I'm not sure how late those poor people had to stay until they got their books signed. And poor Stephenie, having to write her name over and over again a few thousand times. She had a mountain of sharpies right next to her, so I wonder how many of them she actually went through. All in all, it was a very fun event and extremely exciting to meet one of my favorite authors. Yay!
-Kellyn & I at the event (At first, they were allowing pictures with no flash to be taken, so we took this self portrait. But they changed their minds shortly after this was taken, and NO pictures were allowed anymore, so I couldn't get any during her talk)Grunion Run
Later that night, my nerdy bio friends and I went on another grunion run. Although the grunion will still be coming around the next few months, this was the last official night for the Grunion Greeters research. This time, our monitoring time was 10:45pm-12:45am. Since we didn't see a single thing the last time we went out, we were *hoping* to see something, anything this time, even if it was one little scout. After roaming up and down the beach for about 45 minutes, we finally saw some grunion! At first, a handful at a time were coming up. We counted about 50. Then the numbers started increasing into the hundreds. And kept increasing. And increasing. There were thousands! The length of the beach was eventually covered in the little silvery fish--the females digging their back ends into the sand and laying their eggs, and the males flopping around and fertilizing the eggs. IT. WAS. AWESOME. We were all so giddy, running up and down the beach to look at all of them--it was the first run that Alicia, Emily & I have ever seen, and the biggest run that Ann & Shannon have ever seen, so it was a pretty exciting thing for all of us. By the end of our monitoring time, the run had lasted for over an hour, and they were still on the beach when we left.
-This is what it looks like, but imagine the length of beach like this.
-Me, Emily, Alicia, Ann & Shannon with the grunions behind us. We are holding up our five fingers because this run was rated a W-5 (for our monitoring, we have to rate the runs from a W-0 to a W-5, five being the ultimate of the grunion runs. And that's what we saw, the big kahuna of runs.)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Quote-o-the-day
"Don't worry about what the world wants from you, worry about what makes you come more alive. Because what the world really needs are people who are more alive." -Lawrence Le Shan
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Isthmus
I had a fabulous time on the Island! My friend Alie's boyfriend lives at the Isthmus, so her, Alicia, and I headed out there to hang out for the weekend. He has a killer beach-front studio, and we spent most of our time (when not in or on the water) soaking up the sunshine and relaxing on the front porch. Here's the awesome view from Jason's porch:
We got there Friday night and spent the evening at the bar. Went to breakfast Saturday morning, then spent the rest of the morning napping and reading and enjoying the view on the porch. In the afternoon, we leisurely kayaked around for a couple of hours. The water was beautiful and visibility from the surface was great. Went for a swim, and although the water was cold, it was bearable--definitely not comfortable, but not numbing either, so that was nice. Sunday morning, Jason took us out for a ride on his boat, Pepe, and in the afternoon we went for a snorkel before we had to catch our boat ride home. Ahhh, wish I was there again!....
Jason cliff diving:
We got there Friday night and spent the evening at the bar. Went to breakfast Saturday morning, then spent the rest of the morning napping and reading and enjoying the view on the porch. In the afternoon, we leisurely kayaked around for a couple of hours. The water was beautiful and visibility from the surface was great. Went for a swim, and although the water was cold, it was bearable--definitely not comfortable, but not numbing either, so that was nice. Sunday morning, Jason took us out for a ride on his boat, Pepe, and in the afternoon we went for a snorkel before we had to catch our boat ride home. Ahhh, wish I was there again!....
Jason cliff diving:
Friday, May 16, 2008
Bike Week, Island Weekend
Bike-to-Work Week:
In Which My Friends/Coworkers & I Form an Asian Bike Gang
Oh wait, did I say asian bike gang? Well, not all of us were asian. There were the asians, and the honorary-asians. And we were on bicycles. Hah, so what I meant to say was we formed a Part-asian Bicycle Gang. But Asian Bike Gang sounds waaaay better....Well, this week was Bike-to-Work Week, so Emily, Mike, Alicia and I bikepooled on Wednesday and Thursday. We all met up on the beach path and rode our bikes in together. It was fun & there are so many benefits to biking to work!:
1. A nice ride by the beach on a sunny & beautiful California morning
2. Good company & good conversations
3. Exercise
4. Being environmentally friendly & saving money (added up, the four of us saved a gallon of gas each day)
6. The chance of seeing dolphins (which we did see on Thursday morning--a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins hanging out and swimming around in the harbor)
5. And....we're a part of an Asian Bike Gang!
Island Weekend:
In Which My Friends & I Will Be Spending the Weekend Snorkeling, Kayaking, Drinking and Relaxing on an Island
Not just any island, but THE Island--Catalina Island, and I'm so very excited! The Pride trip never panned out last month and I still haven't been out to the Island since October, so this trip is very exciting indeed. It's going to be even better, because I won't be working (which means I can drink!) and can spend the weekend relaxing and doing what I like. Yay!
In Which My Friends/Coworkers & I Form an Asian Bike Gang
Oh wait, did I say asian bike gang? Well, not all of us were asian. There were the asians, and the honorary-asians. And we were on bicycles. Hah, so what I meant to say was we formed a Part-asian Bicycle Gang. But Asian Bike Gang sounds waaaay better....Well, this week was Bike-to-Work Week, so Emily, Mike, Alicia and I bikepooled on Wednesday and Thursday. We all met up on the beach path and rode our bikes in together. It was fun & there are so many benefits to biking to work!:
1. A nice ride by the beach on a sunny & beautiful California morning
2. Good company & good conversations
3. Exercise
4. Being environmentally friendly & saving money (added up, the four of us saved a gallon of gas each day)
6. The chance of seeing dolphins (which we did see on Thursday morning--a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins hanging out and swimming around in the harbor)
5. And....we're a part of an Asian Bike Gang!
Island Weekend:
In Which My Friends & I Will Be Spending the Weekend Snorkeling, Kayaking, Drinking and Relaxing on an Island
Not just any island, but THE Island--Catalina Island, and I'm so very excited! The Pride trip never panned out last month and I still haven't been out to the Island since October, so this trip is very exciting indeed. It's going to be even better, because I won't be working (which means I can drink!) and can spend the weekend relaxing and doing what I like. Yay!
Friday, May 09, 2008
Quote-o-the-day
"In so many millennia, the humans never did figure love out. How much is physical, how much in the mind? How much accident and how much fate? Why did perfect matches crumble and impossible couples thrive? I don't know the answers any better than they did. Love simply is where it is." -The Host, Stephenie Meyer
Thursday, May 08, 2008
I Wish...
...I had a nicer camera to be able to better capture moments like this:
I love my little point-and-shoot Canon, but sometimes it just doesn't cut it. *sigh* I'll get a nice camera one of these days hopefully...
We had another amazing encounter with a superpod of Common Dolphins on Tuesday. I was crossing my fingers and hoping to see the Humpbacks that have been breaching a lot lately. I've never seen a breaching whale, and I've been been DYING to see one breach all season! Last Thursday, the Humpbacks were being very playful--fin slapping and lobtailing and breaching about twenty times--and I missed it! And Monday, they were breaching again. So, going out Tuesday, i was very hopeful that we would get to see it also....Sadly, I didn't have such luck. Not only were there no breaching whales, there were no whales period. Such a bummer! On the bright side, we did see the superpod, which is always an incredible experience. It never ceases to amaze me--being surrounded by thousands of dolphins, swimming so gracefully all around us. AND, we saw a couple of Mola mola, which are one of my favorite fish. It was another fun trip on the water. Maybe I'll catch the breaching next time....
I love my little point-and-shoot Canon, but sometimes it just doesn't cut it. *sigh* I'll get a nice camera one of these days hopefully...
We had another amazing encounter with a superpod of Common Dolphins on Tuesday. I was crossing my fingers and hoping to see the Humpbacks that have been breaching a lot lately. I've never seen a breaching whale, and I've been been DYING to see one breach all season! Last Thursday, the Humpbacks were being very playful--fin slapping and lobtailing and breaching about twenty times--and I missed it! And Monday, they were breaching again. So, going out Tuesday, i was very hopeful that we would get to see it also....Sadly, I didn't have such luck. Not only were there no breaching whales, there were no whales period. Such a bummer! On the bright side, we did see the superpod, which is always an incredible experience. It never ceases to amaze me--being surrounded by thousands of dolphins, swimming so gracefully all around us. AND, we saw a couple of Mola mola, which are one of my favorite fish. It was another fun trip on the water. Maybe I'll catch the breaching next time....
Monday, May 05, 2008
Front Ended & other things
Front Ended
Yesterday morning, while waiting at a stoplight on my way to work, I was front-ended. (I know, I know, sounds kinda funny. At this point you're probably wondering "What the heck do you mean you were front-ended?" But I was. Here's the story...) Waiting for a left turn signal, I was stopped behind another car that was apparently too far into the crosswalk. A pedestrian was crossing the street, so the person in front of me decided she would back up off the crosswalk. It would have been fine and dandy if my car WASN'T RIGHT BEHIND HER. She put her car in reverse, I laid down my horn a second too late, and then she plowed right into me. Like I said, I was front-ended. Good thing there was no real damage, but what gets me is that she was very apologetic and said that I was in her blind spot. What!? This just cracks up. How in the world was I in your blind spot when I was RIGHT BEHIND YOU? Might want to get those mirrors checked. *sigh* Some people.
other things
Work went really well yesterday...I taught a class all day, one that I was a bit apprehensive about, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone really enjoyed it, which made me happy. Yesterday was also a big day for the program that I coordinate, and with the great teamwork of my coworkers, it went very smoothly. We all pulled together to make it happen, and our guests went home happy. Happy guests makes me very happy too.
I am slowly but surely continuing to create Twilight fans! It's the littlest thing, but it gives me so much satisfaction, haha. In the past week, three more friends have started reading it, and one friend has bought the book and will read it soon.
Saw Iron Man last night, which was surprisingly very enjoyable. I was a bit of a skeptic--Robert Downey Jr. as a superhero? But he was fantastic in the role.
Yesterday morning, while waiting at a stoplight on my way to work, I was front-ended. (I know, I know, sounds kinda funny. At this point you're probably wondering "What the heck do you mean you were front-ended?" But I was. Here's the story...) Waiting for a left turn signal, I was stopped behind another car that was apparently too far into the crosswalk. A pedestrian was crossing the street, so the person in front of me decided she would back up off the crosswalk. It would have been fine and dandy if my car WASN'T RIGHT BEHIND HER. She put her car in reverse, I laid down my horn a second too late, and then she plowed right into me. Like I said, I was front-ended. Good thing there was no real damage, but what gets me is that she was very apologetic and said that I was in her blind spot. What!? This just cracks up. How in the world was I in your blind spot when I was RIGHT BEHIND YOU? Might want to get those mirrors checked. *sigh* Some people.
other things
Work went really well yesterday...I taught a class all day, one that I was a bit apprehensive about, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone really enjoyed it, which made me happy. Yesterday was also a big day for the program that I coordinate, and with the great teamwork of my coworkers, it went very smoothly. We all pulled together to make it happen, and our guests went home happy. Happy guests makes me very happy too.
I am slowly but surely continuing to create Twilight fans! It's the littlest thing, but it gives me so much satisfaction, haha. In the past week, three more friends have started reading it, and one friend has bought the book and will read it soon.
Saw Iron Man last night, which was surprisingly very enjoyable. I was a bit of a skeptic--Robert Downey Jr. as a superhero? But he was fantastic in the role.
OMG!!!!
can't breathe, so excited, ahhh!
omg!
Twilight Teaser Trailer
am i pathetically, hopelessly, completely obsessed?
YES!
am i okay with it?
YES!
omg!
Twilight Teaser Trailer
am i pathetically, hopelessly, completely obsessed?
YES!
am i okay with it?
YES!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
All In a Day's Work
Let's talk about sharks today...
(While looking at an exhibit full of sharks): "How long can sharks stay under water?"
They can stay under water their whole life, the number of years depends on the species of shark, because they all have different life spans... Oh, I'm sorry, you were asking how long they can hold their breath under water. Well, I don't think they really do that, I'm sure it would get a bit uncomfortable...
(After being shown some shark egg cases): "Wow, sharks lay eggs. So, they're not mammals?"
Umm, no they're not mammals...they're a type of fish.
(While looking at an exhibit full of sharks): "How long can sharks stay under water?"
They can stay under water their whole life, the number of years depends on the species of shark, because they all have different life spans... Oh, I'm sorry, you were asking how long they can hold their breath under water. Well, I don't think they really do that, I'm sure it would get a bit uncomfortable...
(After being shown some shark egg cases): "Wow, sharks lay eggs. So, they're not mammals?"
Umm, no they're not mammals...they're a type of fish.
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