While on the Salon floor I got called to the reception area. There stood and awkward guy with a vase full of red roses.. for me! It was really awkward. He didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there smiling awkwardly. For me?! After a while he just went away (back to work I assume), I don’t know, I didn’t notice!

Of course, like everyone who ever gets roses, I asked “who are they from!?” I grabbed the card and blushed as I read the card signed by “Yobo.” He was congratulating me for being in Stage 9. Ever seen the youtube video “Strangers Again?” It only goes up to stage like 5 or 6. But Yobo and I? He decided we’re at Stage 9 -_____- Hehe. What a cheeseball! <3  (Don’t be fooled, this “Stage 9″ thing sounds kind of like a trap!)

I was stunned with a happy feeling like I wanted to burst! I didn’t know what to do with myself! I couldn’t even answer when everyone asks who they’re from. Funny how the song “Just the Way You Are” was playing over the loud speaker so everyone started seranading me. More frozen awkward laughter.

Now all the girls are going to have a “talk” with their husband/boyfriends about what nice flowers I received while at school. Hehe. People asked if they were “I’m Sorry” flowers or “Just Because” flowers. I didn’t know what to say! I didn’t know why Yobo was suddenly ever so sweet to send me them. I was completely surprised! There was no special occasion or monumental moments lately. It was just a regular Thursday afternoon, just like any regular Thursday we’ve had. So I guess that makes them “Just Because” flowers. I love them! <3

I can’t sleep tonight so naturally I browse on xanga. I came across a couple of entries from women who were cheated on, which led to entries of women who was the other woman, to entries of women who cheated. My 2 cents:

As a woman who was cheated on: I can only vaguely think of one situation where I was “cheated on” but even then it turned out that I was unknowingly “the other woman.” And we weren’t official (that’s is never a real excuse). Anyways, in short, it sucked. Bad. The person who cheats on you might as well have beat you with a metal bat and land you in the hospital for months on end because that’s how it feels. For a long time you’re emotionally handicap and you feel like you suck at EVERYTHING. What good are your arms and legs when someone else does everything better than you. You feel useless and paralyzed, you might as well be lying motionlessly in a hospital bed. What good are your looks when obviously it wasn’t good looking enough? You might as well be bloody and bruised, you feel just as ugly anyways. It takes time to heal emotional wounds, like healing physical wounds after a nasty blow. And every bone and nerve and muscle will hurt and ache until you do heal. And if you think you won’t flinch on a cold day, you will. For an illusion of happiness that lasted only 4 months, it took me a full 2 years to get over it. Kind of ridiculous, I know. But I got out lucky they way I figure it it, because some people carry it with them FOREVERS.

What I don’t get is why people stay in relationships where they are repeatedly cheated on. Why even tolerate the thought of it? I am not going to tell you deserve better than that because you should know it for yourself. If you think your self-worth is less than that worthless cheating little bitch, then it’s time you do something to improve your own worth! Go to the gym, take a cooking class, do some volunteer work, do something! It’s better to stand by yourself than stand with someone who hurts you.

As a woman who was the other woman: I have never knowingly done it and I will never knowingly or unknowingly do it ever in the future. I felt extreme guilt towards the girlfriend even though I was a victim myself. I felt like shit, feels like you are the sad little orphan looking in on someone’s warm happy family having a Thanksgiving dinner by the fireplace. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be the other woman. What good validation does it give? That’s you’re better than the original woman? No, it just validates you’re a huge bitch compared to the other woman, no matter how bad of a girlfriend she is, you’re much worst. There are almost 7 billion people in the world. Given you’re not bisexual that leaves you with 3.5 billion people to be with. Trust me, there are other rich, good looking, nice, funny, thoughtful, your soul-matey people out there for you besides the one that’s taken and you’re after.

Any girl who writes an autobiography on facebook about how pretty and femme fatale she is and how she can steal any man is automatically written off. It’s nothing to be proud of. Do you think other women are trembling with fear of you being a threat? Why take pride and satisfaction out of being a hated female? Why not take pride in being a nice, pretty, smart female? Something that everyone can admire and be positive about.  Besides, only dumb doormat boys are attracted to bitches like that.

As a woman who cheated: I don’t know what to say really because I’ve never cheated on someone. I can’t imagine really being in love with someone (as some people claim they are with their significant other) yet choosing to hurt them in the worst possible way by being with someone else. Obviously you don’t REALLY love your significant other as you claimed. When you fall out of love with someone because you’re falling in love with someone else why not leave the original person? Maybe for money or the kids or something crucial to survival? I don’t know. Maybe it’s exciting or you just need to get away. I feel like it’s not worth it.

And we’re back: If I offended anyone, well maybe it’s time you got offended. Ha.

I don’t think my mom has ever had a Ladie’s Night Out. She’s the typical Asian mother who works then comes home and cooks dinner for her husband and family every single night.

But now she’s widowed and all her kids are grown up. Today she asked me for the number to her favorite restaurant. Why? She wanted to make reservations for herself and 2 girlfriends. It was unusual to me, so being the brat that I am, I assumed I was invited so I invited myself.

A few hours later I realized it was Ladie’s Night Out. Her first. So I uninvited myself. Hehe

I’m glad for my mom! She has ALWAYS taken care of my family that when my brothers moved out and my dad passed away I wondered what she would do for fun. Even before that she never really went out alone without the family. Don’t get me wrong, my mom is a REALLY sweet lady and has A LOT of friends. But like herself previously, her friends are all also family women. So the women would hang out when the families hung out. My mom is the first to be widowed so while all her friends are still spending time with their families, my mum is all alone. Stuck with me. Hehe.

Anyhow, they’re out for dinner and a “healthy-eating-for-older-Asians” workshop (sounds fun.. I know). And I’m home all alone. So sad.

Wanna see pictures of MY girl’s night?

 
The usual ladies… why are they so tall and I’m not?! Ugh! We’re supposed to come from the same Phamily tree!

 
Running into friends from outta town!

Why does everybody sit on me? I’m toooo small 

End of the night. Time to go home! Until next time!

When it comes to love we all have our own lists of qualities we look for in the other person: they have to be this tall, this skinny, makes this much money, went to this school, have this sense of humor, on and on and on.

I am going to assume for all the wonderful traits you are demanding, you are confident you can offer better than those qualities yourself. Because when we REALLY REALLY love someone, we want to give them the best of everything we’ve got, not just take the best of what they have.

What do I have to offer?
1. Time: Aside from right now with me being in both full time school and running my business I usually have A LOT of free time. Because my business allows me to be in control of my time schedule. I can choose and when I want to and when I don’t want to work. Also being in the bridal business, my main work days fall on only 2 days out of the week, 8 months out of the year (yet making a full salary. hehe nice huh?) No limited days off! Meaning.. you can take me on vacation anytime for as long as we want!!

2. Free clothes: I care a lot how I look. So that means I care a lot how we look as a couple. If I don’t think you look as nice as you should, I will go through the trouble of shopping and buying new outfits for you. Free clothes delivered! You don’t even have to think about it! You just put on what I tell you too

3. Activity: I am very low energy so hanging out with me is very relaxing. My favorite thing to do is lay in bed with heated blankets. I won’t ask to be taken everywhere and do everything. You will have NO problem with keeping up with me. But if you like doing things and going places, I’ll give you an extra physical challenge by asking you to carry me there.

5. Great home cooked meals: My mom is a GREAT cook. Hehe. Just kidding

6. Decisions: I am very decisive. There are never unanswered questions about where to eat or what to do.

7. Nice home: I like home decorating so the house will look like it’s from out of  magazine. Even better. I LOVE to home decorating BARGAIN hunt shop! My favorite stores are Home Goods, Ross, Marshalls, etc… Hehe!! Great home! Little money! And even when I change the whole house every 2 – 3 years it will still be very affordable!

8. Common Sense: I don’t have a fancy college degree (yet) but I have a lot of emotional intelligence and common sense. More than the average person.

9. Kids: I’m GREAT with kids. I’ve volunteered my whole life with kids. I’m great with them. hehehe. I plan to be a VERY involved parent. I’ll never be the type that just drops their kids off to practice and picks them up from the car. I’m the type to go in, and watch them and talk to their instructors and volunteer and donate.

That’s all I can think of for now. Feel free to fill in whenever you’d like Won Choe. And let’s see YOUR list!!

Edit: I thought of some more…

10. Male Ego: Want to feel like a MAN? Want to open doors? Fight my battles? Lift heavy things? Be my guest!! Please!!

11. No Secrets: I am very honest, not in the I’m-a-blunt bitch kind of honest but I am very honest about how I feel about everything. So lucky you, no guessing what I want for Christmas or Birthdays or how I want our surprise dates to go. hehe…

12. Face Control: I want to make sure the people around you are … representing you in a positive light. So all those cheap hoes on your facebook? Don’t worry, I’ve deleted them for you already

Hehe okay I realize some of you guys think I am a nightmare girlfriend by now. Well…. sucks to be you!!

Today I met up an old friend for dinner in the financial district in San Francisco. She was the closest thing I had to a best friend in high school. She was the super stressed about everything while I just floated by. We ended up getting into the same college, only because she made me apply and then checked for me when admission letters come out. But she went to the fabulous LA and I stayed behind. She struggled through college and I dropped out. She went the business route and did her internships here and there. I moved back home and started my business in the art & beauty industry.

5 years later we’re both working women. We make the same amount of money with the same amount of stress and problems but in completely different worlds. She went into the corporate world with one of the Big Fours. Me? I’m working on expanding my art & beauty business, which is doing very well despite my set backs.

I think in a way we both are proud of each other yet also envious. She now dresses and dines like those corporate ladies I always see on tv. I often wonder if I would have survived if I had stuck it out and gone hard head on with college. I wish I had the persistence. Her? She wishes she can just drop all the security the job comes with and move to New York and go into an entry level job doing something fashion related. Something more artistic and free, like what I do. Me? Sometimes I long for the security and the benefits and the paid for travel around the country training. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

To be honest, the corporate world is very scary to me. In my 7 years of workings, I’ve always worked at small businesses or art related work or just in a very women friendly environment. I’ve never had big deadlines and grey uniforms or cubicles and whatever else happens in a corporate environment. I was super stressed about what to wear to my first corporate holiday party with my corporate working boyfriend. It’s funny, because a lot of my makeup & hair clients are extremely corporate people who work in senior management and accounting and number crunching positions. I even have a regular client who is an owner of a huge multi billion dollar corporation and I get along with everyone fine and everyone seems to like me a lot. But the thought of me being in a corporate environment seizes me up! Even picking up my girlfriend today from her office building was building a mild anxiety. Yet, when I’m on a makeup job, and I have to enter high security office buildings that require a special badge and security escort, I feel fine. Me, in my floral dress and hot pink makeup case feels so natural in the office environment, as sore of thumb as I am, it feels fine even when all the grey suits are looking up from behind their cubicle at me.  Am I making any sense? I guess I am trying to say I feel the best in my element. I couldn’t imagine being in the other.

Anyhow, I’m so glad I have a best friend who is the personality opposite of myself. Swapping stories is so much fun when we do get the chance to get together. A lot of her corporate training occurs in San Francisco. While a lot of my makeup & hair conventions happen in Los Angeles. Good trade

But I guess now a lot of companies are becoming much more hip and relaxed and “fun environment” for their employee. At the same time, I am learning a lot of the major name salons are actually ran very very very corporate. Kinda interesting isn’t it? It just means everyone has a place in this world!

I had an 85 year old client for a cut and color. 85 but her mind was still clear as day. Except when she fell asleep while I did a presoftening treatment (to help grey hair absorb color better) on her. I panicked for a minute thinking back to the stories about old people dying in your salon chair. But the cape I put around her was steadily moving up and down.

When she woke up she told me told me a story about grandkids who were in a lion dancing team in Chinatown and how they lion danced at their grandpa funerals. So I asked if her grandkids were Chinese because she was obviously white. Turns out she had been telling me stories about her equally elder Chinese neighbor and her Chinese family the whole time. We talked for 45 minutes about some other person’s family. She kept bringing up names of strangers as if I should know who they were too. My friend walked by and made a comment about how I talk more to clients than I do to my own friends. Hardly. I wasn’t talking to her, she was talking to me -__-

My client had worn a vest so I didn’t notice that one of her shoulders had completely dropped until she showed me. Imagine if one of your shoulder was down to your boobs. I never want to grow old now. Also, she’s a survivor of cancer, 5 times over.

I was really surprised she was kind of picky with her hair cut and color, she wanted to double check all angles and  lengths. I was mostly surprised because she’s 85 and did not have glasses but could see clearly still. Most clients at this age aren’t really in tune with what you’re doing to them, much less picky about it.

All in all she told me I was very pleasant. Hehe even though I accidentally streamed a whole line of water inside her shirt and down her back while I was rinsing the color out of her hair. I felt really bad because shampooing is actually one of my favorite and best skill but given her body posture and frailness I couldn’t position her correctly and did the best I could with keeping water out of her complete made up face and her ears, which had an ear device in it. Even the towels couldn’t help me this time.

Anyhow, I’m pooped today. I could not get up this morning. I felt like I had been drugged to sleep or something. I guess my body knew I had time to rest today so rest it did! Hope everyone else is getting their rest in this gloomy weekend

Everyone that Ive started school with has graduated by now. The lab floor is split up with juniors on one side and seniors on another side. I’m the only one left on the senior side now. Technically I am still not even a senior because I failed again last semester. But I got bored with being a junior so I just attend senior classes now. No one notices. And the teachers who do notice thinks it’s better this way. Welcome to cosmetology school organization folks.

The other day I got a client for a shampoo and blow dry. Turned out she was African American. I never worked on African American hair before but this IS a school after all so I don’t HAVE to know everything. Upon seeing me she kind of start bitching about how she specifically requested someone who had experience with African American hair. Then she asked if I have ever worked on African American hair before. I said no but that between myself and an instructor we would do a great job. She kept on bitching. So I told her I’d be right back. I went and told an instructor who found an African American student who had done her friend’s hair. So I gave her to the other student. They started bonding over African American hair and how other people don’t know how to do it. I stood around for a few minutes promising I would watch and learn for next time. But then it was lunch time so I just went to lunch instead.

I didn’t think much of it. But I guess the instructors were pissed about her. They kept apologizing to me and saying they don’t even want to imagine if this were switched around. Guess I never thought of it that way. I was just glad they let me go to lunch and not stay behind and wait. 

End story of my cosmo school conflict, which wasn’t really a conflict. Hope everyone else has been well : )

Must be a full moon.

Well, glad I am sitting on the other side of the glass door this time. Being in a relationship with this man has been wonderful. For all the heart ache, heart breaks, betrayal, i-don’t-give-a-fuck’s he’s been through he sure doesn’t show it. With the way he treats me, I would have thought he’s been married for a lifetime and then some.

There hasn’t been a single thing I’ve asked for that he hasn’t been more than willing to give me or at least work hard to get it. Not the xxx figure salary, the xxx carat ring, the xxx bedroom house, the xxx speed car. Not the kisses and smooches, and hugs and bugs, and everything in between. Even when he thought I was a gold digger he still wanted to give. Even when he learned I am emotionally attaching, clinging on, possessive and irrationally psychotic, he still wanted to give.

He’s been ever so patient with teaching me how to make a relationship work. He’s even put aside his own pride for me. He knows the materialistic things make me happy but they aren’t at the core of who I am so he gives it to me anyway so I can be momentarily a little bit happier. We even started shopping together… hehe.

How can love not be easy? I wake up everyday and I know there is a man already up and waiting for me.

Most awesomest birthday party in a long long long time. My first time doing it at home since freshman year of high school!

Preparations:

Mum spent 3 nights grocery shopping and preparing dinner for everyone   Love her!! <3

Yoebo cleaned my back balcony! I didn’t have work gloves for him… hehe sorry <3

 
More peoples who volunteered in the kitchen! I helped by staying out of their way

The end result. Yuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Getting ready to host guests for dinner party 

Cake:

The super cute cake my friend ordered for me. Lol.

Yay! Happy 23rd to mee

Opening Presents:





 
Thank you to everyone for the super cute, yummy, useful presents! But the best present was all your presence. So great to feel loved  <3

Games:
5 minutes before my party I realize I had not planned how I would entertain my friends, who all didn’t know each other. Luckily one of my friends brought some board games. When he left we fell back on good ole charades. I had sooo much fun! Especially because my team kept winning. Hehe 

Getting Ready Party:

After I helped all the girls get ready, it was my turn!! Hm.. is my vanity table big enough or what!?

Freakyish picture. Ever. Hahaha. Doesn’t it look like yoebo is my reflection? He said this mirror shows my inner beauty -____-. 

Heading out the door with my homebody girls

Night Party:

Yea bishes!

Shots for everyone!!! People should stop forcing me to drink because I don’t drink… I wonder if anyone ever notices how I spit my alkie back into my chaser. Hahahaha. Yea.. don’t ever ask to share chaser with me unless you want some special Van Pham backwash cocktail.

Getting our “drinks” on. Now you know my secret. Hehehe.
Okay I actually took ONE shot and what a mistake. I ended up feeling pretty sick from it. Lol. No alcohol for the past 3 years. Cheers to another 3 alcohol-free years!

I’m not hatin’ on alcohol. It makes everyone get along.. even these two

Being a brat  :p

Hehe.

Taking a break with yoebo <3

With the girlies while we wait in the parking lot at the end of the night.

With yoebo

Birthday kisses!!

She’s a great kisser. Hehe

Him? He’s just okay. Hehe  <3  <3  <3  <3  <3

One of the best weekend ever!!

The weekend started off with hanging out with yoebo! He flew in for the tattoo convention and got a half sleeve done by a famous Korean tattoo artist. While we got that done, my cousin and I shopped all day! We were shopping for matching shirts and ties for our dates. Hehehe. Men have no idea how much work goes into looking good!

The big day…

Getting everyone ready for the wedding! Why are there sooooo many women in our Phamily? Lol! We had to make sure we represented the Phams as fabulous as possible!

On our way to church. I painstakingly glue each individual rhinestone to my dress. Took 3 nights staying up past midnight!

Yoebo and I

My immediate family

 
The cousins   Actually they’re my 2nd cousins so technically I am their aunt. Muahahaha.

Arriving at the reception. With the beautiful bride and wonderful groom

With my cousin! The Phamily “drunk uncle” Hehe.

My brother and sister!

With my brothers! Guess which one of us is faking the beer? Hehe.

With mum

Yoebo and I! Awww my dress got wrinkled when I had to run around and do everyone’s hair for the reception!

With the wonderful photographer and friend, Junshien

On the job!!

Fun raffle game at the wedding to win unwanted wedding gifts. Hahahaha.

We tried to rigg it in our favor.. but we still didn’t win

My poor Korean boyfriend had to put up with the Korean jokes every single time he’s with the Phamily. LOL!!! Until now he found his Korean brother from another mother (the groom’s little sister’s boyfriend). They seemed OVER JOYED to finally have another Korean around. Hehe.

Love this picture of them! <3

With my fabulous cousins. You may recognize them from … all my clubbing pictures. Hehe.

MUAH!! Kiss for me!

Muah! Kiss for you!

Sunday was spent at my cousin’s house with ALL the Phamily for a special BBQ lunch! Soooo much yummy food! We had such a GREAT time recapping what happened at the wedding, especially after everyone had  a few drinks!   We plan to have a cousins reunion/vacation once a year now and the adults volunteered to donate $2k for every trip we plan