Typical Hectic Day of a Dancer

Tonight's Main Event: 

MA'OHI NUI kicking off the ProBowl Party @ Waterfront, Aloha Tower.  

Live performances by T-Pain and JBoog 

You're probably thinking that I'm crazy to be blogging on a "show day," but trust me this one will be short, because I'm running on a tight schedule... tight like my pu........ Bahahahaah!  Okay so before working my 7 hour shift today [with no break, as usual], I got up early to work out, eat breakfast, pack my lunch, shower, brush my teeth, and then I had to scrounge for ti-leaves to make our fresh costumes for tonight's show.

You're probably asking, "Why did I procrastinate and not have my fresh costumes done earlier in the week?" Well, for two reasons, 1) I was working during the day and practicing nights to prepare for our upcoming tour.  2) Our clients don't hire dancers that dance with dead crap for costumes, thus we try to keep our costumes as fresh as possible... [Just like fresh ahi poke from Tanioka's].

So, if you don't own a farm or botanical garden, which most dancers don't, you're gonna have to go on a wild search to find the plants and resources you need for costume making....... et Voila!  Here is my secret spot for picking my red ti leaves.  I try to look conspicuous or pretend that I'm doing regular maintenance so that I don't get caught, busted, or arrested!  Yiiiikes!

I already have green ti leaves in my yard, so that's where these babies in the pic below came from.  Now I have to clean, strip and braid the leaves into material to make my costume, which for tonight will be a hip costume and a hei for my head.

Even if you're a pro at making these, finding the time out of a busy schedule to have your costumes done is still a hassle because it is time consuming.  Just like cooking, you want to make your costumes with love, otherwise the end result just comes out sh***y.  Preparing for shows and being a hardcore dancer in general gets really tiring :0( but the pay off is great, which is why I'm still die hard!

Anyways, the end result is shown below :0) Now all I have to do is throw some water on her, put her in a cooler, or a cool place in general, and I'll be ready to rock the sh** out of her at our show!!

Wish us luck at the event!  Hope you all have a HAPPY THURSDAY, a GREAT ALOHA FRIDAY, and an AMAZING WEEKEND to follow!  Xoxo!!

A U S T R-maa'fuckin'-A L I A Baaaabyyyy!

I want to start off with a quote from my dear friend, Madea!  Haha!  Also known as, Tyler Perry :)

Nobody said it was gonna be easy! But it’ll get easier when you learn how to love yourself. When you get to a point in your life when you look at people and go: “okay, wait a minute. You? Or me?” You will make a decision. Look, I’ve never just thrown nobody away. I’ve never in my life just thrown somebody away, just say: “don’t bother me. Don’t talk to me no more.” I have never done that. What I do is, I tell them: “look here, this thing you’re doing right here? That’s gonna cause a problem; you need to fix that. ‘Cause if we gonna be friends, you gotta fix it. If you don’t, we gonna have an issue.” Now, if you see someone fix it, or they even trying to fix it, that’s someone that cares. Keep them around. That’s a leaf that’s trying to grow up and be something else. You understand? But if you tell somebody that what they’re doing is hurting and they need to stop it, and they keep doing it? They don’t care; move on. Let them go. No matter how much it hurts, let them go. And it’ll get easier, I promise you . Everyday it will get easier and easier and easier. You just got to make it through. You hear me honey?

I looooooove wise ole Madea!  Reflecting upon that quote makes me realize and be all the more thankful of the wonderful people--my family and friends--that I have in my life!  This past week was so difficult for me to get through.  I'm not sure if it was just a menstrual or hormonal imbalance kind of jive, but I felt super fat, unmotivated, lonely, a bit suicidal... haha don't take the latter seriously, I think the suicidal part was probably just me taking the "F*** My Life" perspective to a whole new, majorly melodramatic level.

But anyways, there are definitely times where I look forward to having restful days, peace and quiet, not having to deal with work, gigs, dance practices, chores, errands etc. etc.  Days where I can just have absolute "Me" time.  Yes, those kinds of days do exist for me.  I make it happen, otherwise, I probably go crazy, gouge my eyes out or jump on broken pieces of glass or something.  On the contrary, I have my moments where I look forward to my life where I am so busy that I am not able to indulge in "Me" time at all!!!  [Not to say that I enjoy every minute of being bussst-ass-busy, but there are stolen moments where I do enjoy "gettin' busy."]  Yes, those days exist too, and unfortunately, they unjustly outnumber the peaceful and restful days... by a landslide :(  I don't know if you recall reading my blog about our dance group's Christmas Show, but just as an example, during that time, it was caaah-ca-ca-caaa-raaaay-zzzeeee busy!  And the next couple of weeks will be the same because in the middle of February, a select few dancers from Maohi Nui are going on tour to.....

A U S T [mother fuckin'] R A L I A !!! Yeah, Australia!!

I'm super duper excited!  I still didn't ask for leave from work yet, and I haven't even prepared my student's substitute plan either.  I haven't thought about packing.  We haven't learned any of the dance numbers we're supposed to perform.  And we haven't prepared/sewn any of our costumes!  Ohhh what joy will the next couple of weeks bring!  Ugggghhhh!  I'm not looking forward to the stress that comes with preparing for these kinds of dance events, but HE surely does plan my life accordingly.  And I say that because my sister is leaving, and I've been having more bad days than good days, so I know HE knows that the stress will help to get my mind off of things and help me get through the emptiness I've been feeling and focus on life and the better things ahead :)

To help brighten the mood of my sister leaving for New York, my mom, Tine, and I went shopping today at Ala Moana.  It was more for my mom than anything and Tine and I were just there to support her decisions [No that material looks cheapy! Oh yea, go with that one, you look so Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy] but hey she deserves it :) Oh, I also scored myself two cute pairs of shoes that I plan on rocking in Australia... and I'll probably rock them out for the next 10 years of my life as they become "so last season" and then slowly make their comeback into the fashion world... like bell bottoms!  I don't ever buy anything stylish.  Meaning to say that I am the epitome of "ghetto" haha kinda sorta so I'm very happy with the shoes :) Okay have a great week in Hawaii Nei all!

Oh yeah **CHEEEERS** for starting the New Year off with a new blackberry phone :) Ohhh how I loooove her soooo :)

Pill Boxes!

First Hike of 2011!  Kailua, Hawaii, Pill Boxes :)

Let's see how long I can keep this up... too tired to write so enjoy the pics! ...I had pics on here...then I don't know where they went lol. Must've had something to do with my phone upgrade. YIKES! Technology these days!

Switching Gears into 2011

So the last time that I blogged would have to have been right before Maohi Nui's Christmas Show.  Things started to pick up and I started to get suuuper busy!!  The Holidays have been sooooo busy indeed!!  All the long late night practices, rehearsals, costume picking (as in picking fresh leaves), costume making, and costume prepping took up so much time within that one week.  As if that was not enough to drain the energy out of me.  Little did I know the remaining three weeks would get worse!  Ugghh!  So many parties to celebrate the Holidays, to celebrate another year of success and hard work, to celebrate graduations, to celebrate another year of friendship and many more to come, to celebrate birthdays, and wedding engagements!!  It is truly, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" for me :)

The highlight of the past two months would be seeing my family reunited under the same roof again since Thanksgiving 2007.  That's a little over 3 years!  I finally got to meet my youngest nephew and we got to throw them both a big birthday bash at our hale like my mom has always dreamt of doing.

Of course us sisters always dread these big gatherings because that's when mom's fuse is like that of FIREWORKS and when one little thing sets her off... oh truuuust!  She does explode like one!!  So we did our best to clean and help her cook and set up, but still no bueno!  When guests were arriving before the actual call time, she lost it, and went into PRACK-TACKK-TACKK-mode [that's supposed to be the sound of a fire cracker or fireworks haha].  Anyways, the Holidays were amaaaazing, fun-filled, busy, stressful at times, but I wouldn't trade that to have anything ordinary.  I would post up pictures to highlight the many joyous events that took place, but I'm feeling under the weather... it's mostly due to my body working overtime and not getting adequate amounts of rest!  Ugghh!  Damn you anemia!

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION 

1. Do my best to save money by doing more "Free" things.  I guess this all rooted from last year.  I wanted to try new things and be open to whatever, which included going out to clubs, paying cover, buying rounds of drinks, not allowing myself enough time to make a potluck dish so I'd end up buying one, gallivanting too much causing me to buy MORE gas than I actually need.  So to achieve this I intend to:
• Cut down my alcohol intake & try to drink only wine because less alcohol = less $ spent.
• Limit the late night festivities to weekends only or on very special occasions & only to places that have "no cover" or somewhere that I can get on a guestlist e.g. MaiTais and The Shack.
• Utilize and appreciate what Mother Nature has given = a FREE gym :)
2. Going hand in hand with number 1 is to live an even more healthier lifestyle.  It's kind of contradicting because I'm already in the midst of catching a damn cold, but it's because I haven't given my body a break during the holiday season, but I would definitely go about achieving this by: 
• Limiting the late night festivities to also allow me to have more me time and family time.  I already spend enough time working and dancing that often times I forget about myself... forget that I need to take care of myself first!
• Cut down my alcohol and to consume only wine because a glass of red a day is supposed to be healthy.  And hey, if the French drink wine all the time and maintain gorgeous figures, then I can too ;)
3. In past years, I spent A LOT of time and created soooo many wonderful memories with my friends.  So, this year, I want to rekindle the relationship with my family and extended family by talking more and spending more quality time with them as well.

Buuuut in the end, whatever happens, happens!  If I don't succeed in achieving these things, then I would hope that it was for a purpose to achieve something better.  I leave it all in HIS hands for he has a wonderful plan for me, I just got to believe it and stop thinking that I'm a worthless piece of crap!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE :))

dancing: love | hate | LOVE!

We are down to the final week in preparing for our, Maohi Nui's, Christmas Show :0)  This morning was our first practice together as a group--talented musicians, singers, male dancers, female dancers, keiki dancers, and our faithful supporters gathered today for an intense 5 hour practice!  I love feeding off of everyone's energy and excitement every time we are putting on a big production or going into competition.

On Facebook, I posted a status, which read: This morning was nothing short of a PURE BLESSING!! Sometimes I get caught up w/ stress from the daily grind that I tend to go through the motions in life, but today was a great reminder that when I put my HEART into everything I do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING can bring me down. I have so much ♥ & RESPECT for my passion and the AWESOME, TALENTED people that I am blessed to share it with! *Manuia* 

I always refer to tahitian dancing as my constant and throughout the entire time it has always been a love/hate relationship!!  To call it my passion would be an understatement!  I work 8 hours a day, the other 16 hours of the day, I am practicing to be better, I am dancing to help others get better, I am sharing the dance at a performance, I dream of dance, I am drinking to celebrate the completion of the hard work spent to execute the dance, I work out to be a stronger dancer, I eat at certain hours of the day to make sure I don't puke my guts out at dance practice, I refuel my body not to have energy for work, but energy to dance, I think Tahitian thoughts, I listen to Tahitian music, I replay Tahitian dance moves in my head.  When I am not dancing, I crave to dance! I am so in love with this cultural art form, that when I hear the live music I get chicken skin, almost being brought to tears! 

Like in any relationship, whether it be with another person or hobby, sometimes it gets too life consuming and the hundreds of hours, blood, sweat, tears and dedication you put in can put a heavy burden on your shoulders and cause sleepless nights, and stress.  Sometimes I wish to get away from dancing, to lower what's expected from me as a dancer just to ease the stress burden.... but in the end, I always find myself loving and appreciating all the stress and hard work that was spent for the final outcome because it is always PRICELESS!!  To feel the music, the adrenaline rush, to know that you worked so hard for something so beautiful is a feeling that I cannot even put into words.

This week has been stressful indeed trying to keep up with my diet, exercises, retaining choreography for our Christmas show, attempting to manage work, household chores, Christmas shopping, and I just got my period--so I'm trying extra hard to be patient, fight the menstruation fatigue and bloatedness hahaha!  It's been a task, but I am sure that our supporters will not be disappointed by our performance next week Saturday! "Maohi Nui e! IMUA!"

Sunday = FUN day!

I think I just discovered the most uncomfortable feeling in the world [well, for me at least].  It's trying to hold in your crap! HAHA! I know, I know!  I sooooo know what you're thinking... "Why the hell would you want to hold in your crap?"  Well, I wasn't going to hold it in so I could release shit all over myself.  I wanted to hold it for "just a sec" because I was proof-reading my previous blog, and wanted to finish that before taking a dump, but yeah, I couldn't hold it any longer so I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of trying to complete my task.

Anyways, Sundays are always FUN days for numerous reasons:

1. I remember back in the days when my sisters and I would blow off church and go gallivanting!!  Going to town to shop at Ala Moana, Ross, get our Mrs. Field's cookies fix, Borders, Starbucks... etc. We were on a mission to get some shopping done in an hour & half tops! When we'd arrive home, we'd leave our shopping bags in the trunk because to state the obvious, it's pretty suspicious to arrive home with new merchandise when you're coming home from "CHURCH" hehehe!
2. Next on my list would be CHURCH!  [Oh the irony, right?!]  LOL!  I love going!  Since 90% of the time I sit alone (since my mom is in the front serving w/ the rest of the servers [I forget what their title is], I like to think of it as my personal time w/ Him, in His home!
3. As a Catholic, I totally try to take advantage of the Sabbath being a day of rest thus, I never take the time to clean the bathroom, vacuum, wash the clothes, clean my room, or work out haha!  Sometimes I'll be a real cheat and eat lots of junk food.  The most "work" I'll do is probably heat up some leftover food, wash the dishes, and of course DANCE [gigs & practice if I'm available]  =)
4. I also remember when I used to work at Brooks Brothers, our Big boss was always off on Sundays and only came in to work if it was just absolutely necessary.  So, my supervisor at that time, Chris, and I always proclaimed it "FUN day" because for the most part, we got to work with the FUN crew: Bobbie, June, Atsuko, Tammy, Angelo, Masa, Jerome, etc.

So speaking of working out and dancing, our dance group has a Christmas Show on December 11th and I believe that is two Saturdays away.  The week of my birthday, after seeing pictures, I have realized that I am in terrible shape!  I work out on average 4 times a week and dance on average 4 times a week.  So, I do get a great amount of exercise in, but due to recent stress and other outside factors, I haven't been eating as healthy as I should.  After March, I started drinking A LOT..... again!!  At times I would barely eat and other times, over-eat, barely get any sleep, and over-sleep.  Overall, it was an unhealthy lifestyle and my body would agree because my menstrual cycle was super irregular and I was getting sick way too often.........

So........ the week after my birthday, I vowed that for the next three weeks I would eat healthy and do Insanity 6 days a week again to get my "March body" back and look good for Maohi Nui's Christmas show [you know me, gotta always keep up w/ the rest of the girls in line, ah lol].  I've been eating oatmeal or cheerios for breakfast, tuna or turkey or chicken on bread for lunch, and oatmeal again for dinner, unless my mom cooks up Filipino veggies then I'll eat that.  Then, I drink only water or apple juice.  At any time of the day 3 hours before of after my work out I mix a fully rounded teaspoon of cayenne pepper w/ orange juice and suck on three li hing mui seeds after to suppress my appetite.  This weekend was hard because of Thanksgiving, but I think I did good w/ portion control.  It's been hard because it's the Holidays and I want to indulge in all the yummy foods, but shit, it ain't easy to cut weight! =(

I mentioned earlier about how I treat my Sundays like a day of rest or "cheat day" [lack of a better term for it] and I also mentioned my new diet plan hahahahaha!  Okay, so I'm laughing because I sooo totally cheated today.  I had an entire totino's pizza for breakfast [fuck oatmeal man, this shit was goood]!  Yeah, I feel pretty bad so after I publish this blog and after tending to my restaurant on "Restaurant Story," I'm gonna go work out.  **Pinky promise** ;;) <<edited after Tine made her snarky comments =P

Have an absolutely amazing Sunday, FUN day, y'all... Big kisses!

Thanksgiving Weekend!

I have a tendency to go off on Thanksgiving!! Not "off" in a bad way as if to bitch someone out, but "off" as if to say that I go on a "Thanking-Spree"--being thankful for every little thing and I'd make it known to the world by posting a long status on Facebook!  Yup, that is sooo typical me!  From all the major stuff like good health, awesome family and friends, great causes like St. Jude, etc., all the way down to the stuff that people don't really give a shit about haha!  [Merci à Dieu for making the sun so hot so that it is able to shed light on the cows in California, for making sure the callouses on my feet are the right size so I am able to do duck walks on any terrain, for the softeness of my cat, Nohea's, fur and how it brushes against me ever so gently gently]   I guess that's what I get for being an extremist!  But this year I really took it easy and without having to broadcast how grateful I am, I remained so deeply thankful for everyone and everything in my heart :o)  I know people say that if you appreciate someone/thing you should let them know, but as the saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words," so I'll let gracious actions speak for themselves ;)  So, Thanksgiving Day, I went to the 9am service at our church and had my usual conversation with my Savior.  For the remainder of the day it was pretty chill.  I spent it with the family and I replied to phone calls and messages as everyone else was on their "Thanking Spree."  We usually host Thanksgiving lunch and dinner, but this year we just hosted Thanksgiving dinner with the family.

Here's our deep fried turkey and the rest of the meal in the bottom picture.  Outter circle starting from the left going clockwise: rice, pumpkin bread, butter mochi, paradosdos, halohalo, corn, macaroni salad, gravy (in the pot, which I cut off), bitter melon dish, green bean dish.  On the lazy-susie: fried fish, some of the cut up turkey, Filipino spaghetti, and grapes.

During this weekend, I was given a small task to watch my friend's dog since she and her husband would be out of town spending Thanksgiving with their families.  So I went over to do my duties with Umi-boy and after doing everything I was asked, I was going to give him a treat and then be on my merry way, but as I was getting the treats out of the cabinet, he went for my left foot and started to chew down on it.  Thank God it was just my foot and not my leg where I could have muscle injuries or he could've ate a chunk of my fatty tissue.  I feel completely sad for Umi-boy because I know he misses his mommy and daddy!  Of course having me come around to the house is totally suspicious because he is usually super friendly with me when they are around.  So now I'm afraid to go back and feed him :'(

Thank God, it wasn't worse!  So anyways, next topic: BLACK FRIDAY!!  Everyone's been talking about it! Whether they have to work 12+ hours through it, or camp out days in advance to get through it, or shopping all day through it, whatever the situation may be, people are talking about these great deals that are going on everywhere!  Personally, since I've worked retail, Black Friday doesn't particularly turn me on and it's just because there are so many great deals during Memorial Day weekend, President's Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend as well!!  I don't find it worth my time to do so much damage in just ONE day.  Especially since ten million other people want to get the same deal on a particular item that you want.  Chances are, it'll be off the shelf by the time you get to it, unless you're hardcore lai'dat. LOL.

I am proud to say that I've finished my gift shopping in July and I paid it all off!! .......Okay I lied!  Now I feel completely ashamed.  That would all be true if it weren't for the little binge-shopping I did last night... online!  Ugghh!!  Well, at least I'm able to pay it off and they weren't for me!  I bought gifts!  Oh schnapppp!  I just lied again [feeling even more terrible] because the most expensive purchase I made last night was for me!  So I bought my mom a fitness kit since she's all about going to the Spa Fitness Center, I bought my dad a Leatherman multitool (I swear he is the most difficult person to shop for because he is so simple and when you get him nice things it just collects dust), made 2 personalized photo books for 2 different friends, and I bought myself........... a Nikon Coolpix 14.2 MP Digital Camera w/ 7x Optical VR Zoom in bronze for $166 on Amazon :))) It was so late in the evening that I didn't want to be making calls to friends to evaluate the pro's and con's with me... so....... **CLICK** [Just click once to make sure you don't get charged multiple times ;) ] and just like that, I bought it!  I just bought a camera back in March of this year.  My Canon Powershot SX20 IS is awesome, but there are just some things that my new Nikon can fulfill, thus in marriage, they compliment each other perfectly to fit my lifestyle and needs *:o)

So one more day and it's back to the daily grind!  I'm so dreading going back to everything because it has been such a nice break, but hey, nothing lasts forever right?!  So I am SOOOO THANKFUL FOR THE FOOD, THE COMPANY, MY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS,  MY PETS, MY DANCE GROUP, FOR THE MANY MANY OPPORTUNITIES I'M GRANTED, FOR THE AIR I BREATH, FOR MY HEALTH, FOR MY JOB, FOR THE SAFETY & WELL-BEING OF MY LOVED ONES, FOR MY HAIR, FOR MY COMFORTABLE BED, FOR THE MAN-ABOVE, FOR MY IPOD TOUCH, FOR "RESTAURANT STORY" [a game on my ipod touch], FOR THE TRADE-WINDS, FOR THE TI-LEAVES IN OUR YARD, THE KALO PLANTS IN OUR YARD... you get the point, right?!  I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend!!  Be safe... the Holidays have arrived :)))