disney movies

isn't it pretty to think . . that after growing up, getting politicized, and getting a job in the progressive movement . . that you can just take off your "political conscious hat" and enjoy a disney movie?

I have to admit that growing up, I did really love disney movies. My favorite was Aladdin . .

Maybe it was because Jasmine was a lot tanner than the other princesses.
Maybe it was because Jasmine was a little rebellious.
Maybe it was because Aladdin was this witty, goofy, but sincere guy.
Maybe it was because of the soundtrack.

Nah, it's gotta be because she had a pet tiger. Who wouldn't want a pet tiiiigerrrr?? My affinity for Aladdin as a child was not necessarily normal. My favorite set of sheets growing up were my Jasmine flannel sheets. Last winter when I went home, I saw them in my dad's bed. He says he uses the flat sheet sometimes because they're warm . . or maybe he uses them sometimes when he misses his youngest daughter who decided to move across the country to help other Southeast Asian families instead of moving back home to help her own. Okay, okay. So that's a different topic.

Anyway, I just got back from watching The Princess and the Frog. I was pretty excited. Not just because this was going to be the first disney movie with a strong african american "princess" . . or because of the buzz around the interracial couple . . or because the movie was going to be taking place in New Orleans . . but really, it was because, I miss being 10 years old living what I thought was the American dream and watching disney's princess movies in my mom's room . . and dreaming just a little bit while doing it.

There were many funny parts in the movie. Like when the firefly gets upset because he thinks the prince was proposing to his love interest . . the star. Or the blind voodoo lady. Or like when the crocodile (or alligator) falls into the bush and the firefly had to pluck out every single weed one by one. Or like when the two frogs get tangled up in each others' tongues. Or like when the spoiled girl calls her father "big daddy" . .

But I couldn't help but wince with a bit of pain at a few parts as well. Like every time Tiana spoke of all her hard work in a pretty bootstraps kinda way. Or like when her mom tells her to throw her dreams away to find a man so she could have grandchildren. Or the fact that the the evil guy was this light skinned black man. Or the machismo prince that still managed to get the girl . .

Maybe Disney movies are just becoming more complicated? I didn't automatically fall in love with the prince because of his chauvinistic attitude . . and I didn't completely love the princess with her almost haughty bootstraps pride. I didn't automatically think everything was funny and politically correct . . and I didn't completely love the romance between the two because I didn't think he really deserved her and she shouldn't give up her dreams for some man. I didn't automatically love the way folks for New Orleans were depicted, especially the emphasis on black and white and not much in between . . and I didn't completely like all the songs because of the lyrics and context . .

Or maybe, I've just become more complicated? Maybe I'm just starting to think too much about things? Maybe I'm just starting to think too deeply into things?

I guess sometimes life is way too serious to not be able to laugh a little bit . . especially during a Disney movie. If we don't learn to throw some politics out the window once in a while and just enjoy things for what they are . . we'll never survive.





But then I had another, "damn, you've been in dc too long" moment when I couldn't help but think that the little rich girl in the movie kind depicted how I imagine the real life of Louisiana's Democratic Senator Landrieu to be.

(un)happiest states in the united states

isn't it pretty to think . . you could just move somewhere and automatically be happy?

I thought this article on the Happiest U.S. States Pinned Down was really interesting. While this isn't exactly the first time folks have tried to do something like this, is the first time I've been a bit surprised by the results.

Number 1: Louisiana is #1? This must have have been pre-Katrina . . and even then, I'm sure the folks they surveyed probably weren't really the communities of color from places like New Orleans East or the Vietnamese community in Versailles . . but maybe resembled a certain type of Louisiana-er (or whatever they call themselves down there).

Top 3: Looks like the top states are just there because of the weather. For Florida, I mean, if you like muggy super humid weather, I guess that could work for you. Or maybe the folks that were surveyed in Florida were all those retired folks . . which isn't a surprise that they're happy. They're just chillin' at the beach all day. For Hawaii, they don't really have to deal with the rest of the country, so maybe that's a plus. But then again, I hear discrimination is relatively rampant there . . so again, who exactly did they survey?

States in the Middle: These states just look like the sparsely populated states with one or two big cities that they can claim.

States in the Bottom: The bigger, more densely populated, urban, and hussle and bussle states.

This makes me wonder, are people happier when they can feel like they're not connected to a lot of people? Are people happier when they can feel like they've successfully physically or mentally escaped? Are people happier in smaller, less populated, and less "busy" places?

Are people happier alone?

Looks like Americans are subscribing to the ignorance is bliss model. If you don't live in it, hear about it, or have to deal with it . . it doesn't exist . . and you can just be happy in your little state . . little city . . or little town.

It's kind of funny though. Almost all the states I've ever lived in or would consider living in are at the bottom of the list. Maybe this is because I enjoy big, densely populated, urban, hussle and bussle places.

Maybe this is because I like to live in a state of constant crisis.

Maybe this is because I'm a masochist and enjoy making my life complicated . . so I can say that at least, I can control this madness.

But who knows, maybe I'll just move to Hawaii and call it a day.

Careers and Marriage

"So, guys, if you're game for an exciting life, go ahead and marry a professional gal."

My co-worker steered me to the article above about about careers and marriage. she struggles. she struggles with loving this work, but barely making enough money to support herself and barely having time for a personal life.

In some ways, I suppose the struggle with that too. Scratch that. I don't struggle with it. I've come to terms with it. I admit, I enjoy working a lot, being tired, getting frustrated, being angry, getting really excited, etc.

But then again, I'm young. Let's see how many years of these 12 hour work days and weekends in the office I could handle.

However, sidebar: I think the quote above could be changed in a variety of different ways:

Careers v. Marriage: for the unbalanced types

Careers v. Relationships: for the non-marrying types

Community v. Relationships: for the progressive social activists types

I think the Careers and Marriage thing already lays the foundation that it could exist together. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I feel like the real question is, Careers versus Marriage?

Also, for the domestic partner types like myself, I'm not sure how I feel about the marriage part. I think trying to have a relationship (much less marriage) along side a demanding, fast paced, and jet setting "career" is already something of an art I have yet to master (please see Monica's dating history).

And also, for the non-career driven but community driven types, I'm not sure how I feel about the career part. I think it's easy to have a job, especially those 9-5 types where you don't have to take anything home, where deadlines and actions translate into real people, where deadlines and actions translate into real people like you, your family, your friends . . people you love and love you.

A good friend of mine just wrote a blog about love vs. independence. Does career v relationships also mean independence v love? Maybe if you consider your career part of independence.

I guess independence encompasses many other aspects, but careers, job, community -- whatever you want to call it -- has always been a big part of it for me and I definitely don't see that changing anytime soon.

Maybe I've been approaching this all wrong. Maybe the game plan should be to look for someone else who is also a community v. relationships type of person so we can both deprioritize one another be really busy but still have a great time when we are together.

district sleeps alone tonight . .

. . almost every night.

one of the albums that we listened to a lot while driving on our little road trip was the postal service. ironically, i've been living in DC for over a year and haven't reacquainted myself with the first track of the album.

while in berkeley, i thought the song "so described my situation" . . but now it's not even funny anymore.



from falling asleep with full make up on (smeared black ink) . .
to barely listening to statements (i'm staring at the asphalt) . .
to the scenes of all those silhouettes of people sleeping in the bed with her (romantic and not) . .
to the random house parties (i thought the house party phase was over after i turned 21?) . .
to the chanting of "i was the one worth leaving" and "DC sleeps alone tonight" . .

dc really is this funky place where 20 something year olds come to do "serious" work during the day and realize they also need to do some serious NON work during the night and weekends.

. . it also is this funky place where you're not sure if people are really listening to you or if they're already devising a witty comeback or strategically thinking who else to talk to next.

. . it also is place where it seems normal to share beds with people who you might not be romantically involved in, especially if they're the 92034803 friends visiting from "back home." Sometimes your home feels like a hotel and you keep spare beds lying around like normal people keep spare towels in their cupboards.

. . it also is a place where 20 and 30 something year olds have house parties . . kegs and all.

lastly, it also is a place where people come because something before was worth leaving (or not worth staying for) to realize that when you get here, you'll just meet a lot of other lonely people who actually like being alone.

some folks love it . . some folks hate it . . but most folks just hate to admit that they love it.

i'm committed . .

. . to not being committed.

first real commitment: actually blog.

second real commitment: don't be committed.

i realized how boring i've gotten being here in the states. so, i'm committed to:
1) not being boring
2) trying new things, and
3) not being overly committed

i mean, i work way too much be a square in this district of squares.

this might mean, jumping into the ocean at 42 degrees in late november:


or, driving through a few states to get some good fast food:


or, going to random furniture stores:


or almost get pawned off by your friends . . or remembering only certain parts of the night . . or loosing ATM cards by not pressing the "return card" button . . or having really great ideas that don't sound that great in the morning . . or making up stories, only to realize NO story could cover THAT up. no, not even stories with dragons. OR . . coming to the conclusion that maybe my friends are lying because i definitely did NOT do that.

oh, i want to be in my early twenties . . forever.

Promoting LGBT Dating Violence

Are you f-ing serious??

Thank you South Carolina.

No wonder you were the first state to secede from the union.

UC's Fees Increase 9.3%

So when my older brother and sister went to college, my parents paid for their tuition without applying for financial aid.

Granted they could only apply to/attend local schools (UCSD and SDSU) and were required to live at home . . that was a big chunk of change. When my brother started going to college, my parents had to resort to paying Malisa's tuition in multiple payments rather than just putting down the $4,000 (or so) in one payment.

When I went to college, seeing that I was the rebellious and said: f-you-i'm-applying-to-5-UCs-and-hauling-my-ass-500-miles-away-to-Berkeley . . all these payments were on me. Also, by my senior year in high school . . my parents were both unemployed due to some layoffs and I knew even if I stayed in San Diego . . I wouldn't even want to ask for the same sweet deal as my siblings anyway.

So BOO HOO. I left college with $20K in loans. Ironically, this is MORE than what my private school educated friends in DC left school with. Which brings to mind, if I left a public school with that much debt, how much debt would future UC alums be leaving with?

Cuts to Abstinence Only Education!

So while our favorite almost first daughter parades around America promoting teenage sexual abstinence, the Obama administration is finally having some sense and cutting the budget of the stupid abstinence only education.

The only budget cuts to any education program.

YAY!

So going back to Bristol, I wonder how her child is going to feel to grow up knowing that her mom went on a national campaign to talk about how he/she was a big mistake.

It makes me sad to think that instead of shaming young mothers (aka: herself), scaring young women in general, and sentencing her child to growing up unwanted . . she could have used her experience to empower young mothers.

Reminds me of other conservative folks I know.

Community Service, Service, and Activism

from an email.

I think often times . . activists try to stay away from "service" or "community service" because we emphasize the fact that we work in and WITH the community.

I admit, I do this also. No, what I do is NOT community service. It's activism. Community service is what I did to rack up hours and put on my college application . . not what I did in college or what I do now. What I did in college and what I do now . . I do with a purpose. Community service also has a purpose, just not rooted in the same social justice purpose that I've developed over the years...

However, I think shifting our perspective might help. While most forms of service is not considered activism (ie: a bunch of bougie kids going into a low income community and picking up trash and painting some of the buildings), it can be argued that most forms of activism is a form of service (ie: organizing a low income community to pick up trash and paint their OWN buildings).

Only an incredibly (dare I say) arrogant "activist" will go and say, NO, I'm an ACTIVIST . . I don't do SERVICE. We are community organizers not community SERVICE people.

Now, if we look at it this way . . not all organizing is service either right? While I know a lot of folks may say they organize the community, what are the outcomes?

The outcomes are the service.

You can organize a community . . but if there are no actions or results, what is the service?

While most forms of service could be done by a bunch of bougie white people who don't come from the community, the reason why we consider it activism is because we come FROM the community and we work WITH the community to make these things happen.

On the other hand, we can definitely have activism without service as well. If we just sat around and talked about stupid admissions policies, talked about SI being inaccessible to students in the central valley, talked about how high school students should apply to scholarships, or just talked to middle school students about taking the right courses in high school . . then that's just activism without service.

Therefore, it's important for "activists" to not just sit around and think critically about issues . . or talk the talk about social justice . . we gotta make sure we walk the walk and actually act on some of these issues and figure out some solutions.

Where Did I REALLY Come From?

Yet another reason why my parents should have thought about resettling in Australia instead of the United States.

Now this is what I call being a multi-ethnic nation-state!

The Goonies

On Friday after the May day rally, Doua convinced me to go up to Rosslyn to meet up with her, Minh, Helly, and Yimeen for a movie in the park.

Apparently, every Friday during the summer time, Rosslyn screens movies in this really cute park.

Anyway, the movie that they were playing was The Goonies. Doua was shocked that Minh and I both have never seen it . . I suppose a testament to our age.

While I have never seen it, I did tell Doua, "umm . . but I've heard a lot of punk rock songs about it . . "

Which is true.

After watching the movie, so many song make so much more sense to me now.

Passport DC

Yesterday, I went out to Passport DC with Josh, Ann, his friend Kevin, and Sarah Jo.

I've heard great things about it . . but wasn't exactly planning on going because the whole "cultural tourism" thing sounds a little weird to me. Anyway, I went mainly to be able to hang out with Ann, the wife of my DVRP language partner.

While I was a little hesitant, I'm really glad I went both because I got to hang out with some really cool people AND the events weren't as anthropological as they could have been.

I really enjoyed the Embassies of Malaysia, Serbia, Iraq, and Nepal.

It was weird to feel like a speed traveler, trying to hit up as many "countries" and collect as many different passport stamps as possible again.

It made me miss REAL traveling. I guess it also didn't help that I was hanging out with a bunch of peace corp folks . . which BTW made me really rethink doing peace corp one day again.

Because the Thai Embassy was open the latest (till 8pm while all the others closed at 4pm), we went there last.

While all the other embassies gave away free food, the Thai Embasy was selling things like no other. They were even selling these paintings. I managed to snap a picture of this one titled "Tai Leu," which I think is supposed to be of a Lue woman.

It would be accurate . . except I don't remember my relatives ever wearing shirts that emphasized our boobs that much before in my life.

Cost of Trying to be Healthy

I've just recently started my free one week trial at Washington Sports Club and I think I've fallen in love.

So I've noticed that while some of my friends, (aka Van and Danny) have lost weight after moving to the east coast, I on the other hand have definitely not.

Well, maybe I have . . but it definitely has to do with the eroding of my muscle that I built up during high school and was never really kept up when I went to college.

Anyway, so I knew I needed to "get back in shape" -- whatever that means anyway.

So I went around search for gyms in DC. We don't have a 24 hour fitness or a Ballys or whatever so I was pretty much just asking folks around. Results gym near my work is $80 a month. YMCA near my work is $70 a month. Washington Sports Club near my house is $60 a month. Fitness First near Downtown and Arlington is $30 a month.

great. GREAT.

Seriously?! It was like $10 a SEMESTER for the gym at Cal and then free my last year in college.

AHH, I hate not being a student anymore.

Anyway, I've fallen in love with the bougie WSC and might just shelve out the $60 a month. I guess I feel it's worth it because I've become somewhat of an addict again though.

Miss California

Dear Carrie Prejean (aka Miss California),

I just wanted to thank you for so eloquently representing my hometown of San Diego, CA last night on Miss Teen USA.

I especially liked the fact that you were strong enough to give your personal opinion on gay marriage even though the question really just asked your opinion on state versus federal policies and that you coined a new term, "opposite marriage."

It is great people like you that makes me want to move back home to San Diego.

hugs&kisses from dc,
Monica

PS: I'd love to see you do a video blog response to Perez Hilton . . I'm looking forward to hearing more new terms from you.

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Reception

So yesterday I went with Doua to the Capitol Vistors Center for the CAPAC (Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus) Reception.

It was interesting to see the entire room filled with all the APA "must knows" . .

• Elected Officials -- Honda, Mineta, Cao, Scott (who I found out was 1/4 Filipino), Lee, Woolsey, etc. etc.
• EDs of all the APA alphabet soup organizations -- JACL, OCA, APAICS, CAPAC, NAPAWF, NaFFAA, etc. etc.

. . and last but not least, folks like me!

It was a reception to welcome the two new CAPAC members who have just been elected into Congress and who have just recently joined CAPAC. I forget who the person was from one of our territories . . but when Honda introduct Cao . . he repeatly pointed out that as a Republican, Cao makes CAPAC bipartisan.

I think at this point . . Cao probably needs as many friends as he can get. Seeing that he won the election because of some pretty special circumstances AND is facing a recall petition.

snow snow and more snow in DC

In what folks are saying this "Could be the Largest Winter Storm in Three Years" (and by folks, I mean the Washington Post), I found saw some pretty interesting stuff while walking to the bus stop and walking to work.

First, there was a young mother, her son (probably around 3) and their big fuzzy dog making snow angels on the corner of Kenyon and Sherman. Just smack dab on the side walk flapping their arms like excited Californians in Tahoe or at Big Bear. Also, according to our local wine store, since most of the people in my neighborhood are from California (as he observed from checking IDs when people purchase alcohol), it's a good chance the family was from California.

Second, also while walking to the bus stop from my house, I saw a man "shoveling" the snow from the side walk in front of his house. I say, "shoveling" because the man really wasn't shoveling. He was more like sweeping. He was sweeping the snow. You know, it barely snows in DC . . I suppose Sarah Jo and I aren't the only ones who don't think it's worth it to invest in a snow shovel. This man obviously didn't think it was necessary either. However, I do commend his resourcefulness and commitment to being a good neightbor in Columbia Heights. Shovel or no shovel, I know I will very much appreciate his efforts in a few days when all this beautiful white powdery-ness turns to ugly gross dark ice and slush.

Lastly, while walking to Whole Foods to buy my lunch, I saw an older woman (probably in her 50s) walking her dog. This is normal in DC. What is not normal in DC (or I might even so much as say . . the rest of the country/world), the dog had on some really cute red snow shoes on. Okay, okay. So I guess they weren't snow shoes, they were more like little booties for babies.

Anyway, I'm trying to enjoy this while it lasts . . it's hard to though because I know it's going to melt and make walking around a life and death situation.

Gang Rape Pervasive in Cambodia

I stumbled across this on angry asian man and thought it might be a good idea to put it up on the Green Papaya.

Apparently, (as the title suggests), gang rape is pervasive in Cambodia.

While I think this kind of violence is uncalled for, reading the story reminded me a lot of how I felt while sitting in Anthro 3AC, while Professor Brandes talked about young girls in Micronesia as if they were pandas in a zoo or something.

The reporter, Rachel Snyder, even goes as far as framing/suggesting that it's "socially acceptable."

Thank you Rachel Snyder and David Wilkinson for making that observation about Khmer folks.

Now, maybe you can interview and quote a Khmer person who isn't a victim or who isn't the corrupt government so your NPR audience could finally see the beauty AND complexity of Cambodia.

OR, maybe we just need to start getting NPR ourselves and start telling our own stories.

YEEEEE!

i think . .

I should write and reflect more often.