Welcome to Hollywood!

on wednesday i had the privilege to voyage off to hollywood. my early birthday gift from my brother, he bought me tickets to "in the heights." well he has been wanting to see this show for about a year and being a theater junkie myself, i agreed to take him and have the ticket be my birthday/christmas present. so i took my brother to hollywood, a land where dreams happen. we went to the kodak theater, mann's chinese theater and went around hollywood and highland. As we walked into the kodak theater complex, we walked up the stairs with the academy award winning movies on both sides of the stairs. as i watched my brother walk and read all the movies, i can just see the sparkle in his eyes, the hopes of a young actor to receive such a prestigious award sometime in his life time. we passed a few of our favorites and turned around and saw all the empty slots for the future winners and hopefully he will be able to be apart of one of those winners in the future. we also got to walk the faux red carpet and read funny sayings from "actors" on the floor, something i never noticed the past times i had gone.





we then made our way down hollywood blvd. passed a few of my favorite hot spots, geisha house, beso, katsuya and realized that one of my favorite restaurants had been turned into a club, bella was now angels and kings. and realized that one club i had gone to, mood was now closed. i then came to the conclusion that the life span of a hollywood club is one year and if the hill's cast is not going, then no one is going.

after about a mile walk, we finally made it to the pantages. the home of many broadway shows that somehow make a home on the west. last time i had been was when i watched lion king back in middle school. but this time we were is premium seating, in orchestra. so after watching a great show, with amazing actors and songs (which officially are apart of my collection of favorite broadway songs). we made our way to the stage door and waited to meet the amazing actors. my brother was about to pee in his pants, but he got his program ready and waited for the actors to come. all every nice and humble. after all the minor characters came out, shaun taylor-corbett came out and we got to meet him. my brother was so star struck and we shared with him that he some day wanted to be in his shoes. he was so nice to ask for my brother's name and said that he would be looking for him on broadway in the future. to a thirteen year old with hopes and dreams that made his day, week, probably year. i almost cried because at that point i realized that was the turning point of life, maybe he is meant to be an actor, but we will have to wait for God and see what he has in store for him in the future. but it was a fairy tail ending to a great day.




*sorry for the ugliness of this post, i used picasa to upload pictures and it didn't center them.

photography

i've recently fell in love with the art of photography, probably because of my dad, but it's also because of a couple of photographers that i adore. so after a long day of studying, i came home and sat down at my computer to watch a video on garance dore's site and now i feel so much better. rested and full of energy and most importantly, happy (with this california rain, it makes me sad). so i want to share it with you! it's more or less a fashion/ photography video, but i just love it, along with the song that accompanies it, it just makes the video that much better. so the video is so perfect for a day like today (at least in california) it's raining here, it's raining in the video, how perfect!

snail mail

so i've been loving snail mail these days. in the past week, i got a wedding invitation and some mail from a friend. it was so exciting to see a colored envelope sitting in the mail box. and the excitement of ripping open the envelope has to be one of the most exciting things to do. so i just wanted to share with you the two pieces of mail i got over the past week. but i really want to mention my friend victoria's card that she sent me because she is starting up a paper goods company, so please check her out at {paper & type} she is so amazingly talented and she makes the cutest cards!


as for my earth day, it wasn't as quite as eventful as i had wished it was going to be. due to the gloomy weather, i wasn't able to head over to any of the earth day celebrations that were happening in LA. i instead took my klean kanteen and my lunch pail and ate lunch, then headed over to target and came out with my recently bought goods in my purse instead of a plastic bag. but sadly, this is everyday practice for me, since i try to live a very eco-friendly life style.

i decided to start taking more pictures of my life and try to post them up. it's becoming such a fun hobby for me to take up.

Absence of Mind and Body

I do apologize for my absence from the blog. I have been so busy with life, I finally have a chance to catch my breath. So for the past few weeks, I've had a very exciting project that I got to help out with. My friend was getting married and asked my dad to take the engagement and wedding pictures, so I got to be my dad's assistant/ co-photographer and got the shoot the happy couple. I did most of styling and the picture set up such as posing and mostly made sure that the bride looked her best. It was loads of fun, but very tiring, each shoot took an average of five hours, my Tom's were my trusty shoe that keep me comfortable through out the day and it almost felt like a dance shoe since it was so comfortable. I was basically busy with that for about two or three weeks, because not only did I help shoot the pictures, I also helped with the editing process as well. Then as my wedding present to the couple, I offered to choreograph their first dance, since that's more my department. So that took me a few days in the studio coming up with a dance for a couple that never danced before. After countless hours spent going back and forth from home to Pasadena, once the wedding arrived they were prepared and it went beautifully. As saturday rolled around the corner and before we knew it, it was the day of the wedding! The wedding photography was a family affair, my dad and my brother did the picture taking, my mom did the posing/ making sure every single hair was in place on the bride, and as for me I conducted the crazy photo session post ceremony. The madness.
Other than that, my cousin came home from London. Which meant hanging out and eating out, alot. Which is always fun, and we did a lot of laughing and catching up to burn off maybe half of the calories of what we ate.

Aside from that, I've been head over heels in love with this brand of bath products, LUSH! If you don't know who they are, they are a company that sells beauty and bath products, but the reason I love them aside from their amazing bath products, they are super eco-friendly and environmentally conscious. Meaning that most of their products if not all are organic and vegan. They help with different organizations around the world that help with enviro problems, such as the polar bears that are dying due to the global warming. Since earth day is right around the corner (I love earth day, aside from the major holidays, this has to be my favorite non-popular holiday) I just wanted to share with you some of my favorite products that I recently bought.
*Look for the Earth Day post on thursday*
The first product I tried out of the stash of products I bought at LUSH was:
Bath Bomb in Sex Bomb

-I loved the pink color, but aside from that, it was super fun watching the bomb float around and fizz and left my skin super soft and left a subtle perfume on my skin.
Next was the Massage Bar in Therapy

-Super creamy and not very oily. Left my skin super soft and it smells really good, fresh, it's good.
Then the Toner Tab in Tea Tree

-I have mixed feelings about this one, maybe it was because I didn't get the water hot enough. But you have to fill a bowl with hot water, get a towel, put your face over the bowl and then cover the bowl and your face with the towel. I guess it was good, but really, nothing too special. My face felt softer, other than that it wasn't anything special.
My brother is using the Fresh Farmacy Cleanser
-He said it was ok, nothing too crazy. He said he started to break out a little so maybe for his skin its not that great. He likes the smell of it, at least that's something.
I also bought:
Bath Melt in You've Been Mangoed
Soap in Sexy Peel
Shampoo (it's a solid, super eco-friendly!) in Squeaky Green
I'll keep you guys posted on how these work, but go try it out and tell me what you think.

I'll post pictures from the photo shoots I went on as soon as I upload them. And keep your eyes peeled for my Earth Day post, I'm going to try to see how eco-friendly I am and see how I can change my everyday life to be eco-friendly

Also for a up to the moment look at my life, follow me on Twitter! Jennifer_Kim22

One last thing, it includes getting something for FREE!
Earth Day is April 22, Origins, another organic eco-friendly beauty company is giving away a free facial cleanser if you bring in one of your old empty face washes. You can go to any Origins counter, take your old face wash and exchange it for one of theirs!

Spring into the Spring Season

So I haven't been updating, because I've been pretty busy with school, work, and working out at the gym. I'm pretty much always in one of those three places. Usually no where else, occasionally Starbucks, out to eat, and maybe shopping. But the past week, I've had the chance to rest and think about myself and my body. Sometimes the real world tires you out and you just want to go run or take a yoga class to forget everything stressful.
The start of my break, I got to go see a studio space for my friend's photography studio that she is planning to open soon. I was so honored of the fact that she wanted my opinion, even though she knows I'm a science person and not so much of an art person. But probably within the year, I'll be helping her expand her business and maybe she'll let me take a few pictures along the way. The rest of the week was dedicate to going to the gym twice a day and resting and spending time with friends and family. I also squeezed a few doctor's appointments in there to make sure my dieting wasn't affecting my internal body. Towards the end of the week, I got to do something super exciting.
Yesterday I had the honor to take some pictures with my dad for a friend's wedding thats coming up in a couple weeks. This weekend was the casual shoot and next weekend is the formal shoot. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. and drive three hours to the location of the shoot. I had loads of fun styling, posing, and directing the shoot. I also got some pictures in as well, but maybe only a few turned out well. It was stepping outside my comfort zone of science and animals to do something creative. After four hours of shooting it was time to head back home and sleep. I was so exhausted, but I did have fun, so it was worth getting up in the morning. Thankfully next weekend is a sunset shoot, so I can wake up and do some stuff before we go.

I'll post some pictures once I'm done. I officially got my dad to hand over the EOS to the uploading dock for the pictures. I usually had to bug him to borrow the camera and wait until he uploaded them onto picasa, but now I'm in charge!

kogi bbq excursion

wednesday night, 6:30 p.m. after checking twitter all day to see if the kogi bbq truck was coming to my neck of the woods, it said its going to be late, eta 7 pm. i leave the house to drive 1.5 miles to the location where the kogi truck was going to be. but i first had to take a pit stop at the market to pick up some diet coke. so i get to the "maybe" location where this truck was going to make its stop and i get there at 6:45 and there is a line, 50 people deep. and i think to myself, how do these people know of this!? they have no store, no advertising, (only reason why i knew of the kogi truck was because it was on an episode of the best thing i ever ate) but other than that, it was the old school way of getting business, it was the good ol word of mouth. so 7 p.m. rolls around, the kogi truck makes a nice u-turn and makes its way to the parking lot. after an hour of waiting in the freezing cold (because for some reason, here is so cal, its been cold) and figuring out what i wanted to get, i finally order: 4 short rib tacos, 2 spicy pork tacos, 1 calamari taco, 1 short rib torta, and finally 1 short rib burrito (btw i was picking up food for my entire family, we were freaking exciting about the kogi truck coming to our neck of the woods). i rushed home to ensure that was food was still piping hot, and we all take a bite out of the short rib taco, we all look at each other and say "is that it? are you serious?" tell you the truth, its whatevers. my entire family thinks the same. but you are talking to a family that goes to mexico pretty much every year and we go to the mom and pop taco places, so for us, definitely not worth the hype. but we all agreed that at least we can say that we tried it. we probably won't go back, but it was definitely fusion food. so i would recommend on trying it once, if you are willing to wait.

pro:
homemade tortilla
reasonable prices
fun experience
con:
have to wait at least 30 mins or more
the meat is dry and low quality
doesn't live up to the hype
small portions (i wish i took a picture, the taco was the size of the bottom of a standard mug)
no salsa :(

Alice in Wonderland

Last thursday night, I was taken down the rabbit hole via the SMS Drama Department. My day started as a usual thursday, which includes work and class. Then I rushed home to start doing my brother's makeup. He is the all important (well in my eyes) Mad Hatter. We opted to do the Johnny Depp inspired look. Prior to that thursday night, which was the dress rehearsal, I had been doing hours of research to make sure I had all my bunnies in a row. I chatted with MAC artists, went to a dozen YouTube videos, and went through trial and error about five times. I even went as far as doing a face chart for the look. As you may know or not know, special effects makeup/stage makeup takes hours! My brother pretty much sat in our makeshift makeup chair for close to two hours. While the rest of his cast members show up at a 5 p.m. call time which includes doing makeup, my brother and I start doing makeup around 2 p.m. so we have plenty enough time to finish up and allow some time in case I mess up. Sadly friday nights I don't get the chance to do my brother's makeup because I'm at work, but my assistant does it for me.
For the sake of my brother's method acting, we collectively decided not to watch the movie until the closing night of his show. He wanted to ensure that he stayed true to himself and his own interpretation of the Mad Hatter. But I was so proud of him and how long he has come since his first production two years ago.
Come friday night, the opening night of the musical, my parents and I got our flowers, yelling voices ready and skipped over to Wonderland. The fun part was, we had told my brother that we were not coming, but we wanted to share with him the experience of the last opening night of his middle school career. He was pretty excited and surprised to see him and while he went out with cast mates for an after party at applebee's, we sat in the living room remembering about how much he has grown as a person and especially as an actor.
A little preview at the pictures. Being a photographer is super hard. I just have changed lenses five or six times, tripod or not to tripod, it was so confusing.