2012 Miss LA Chinatown Pageant

There’s nothing that will make you feel more old than attending a pageant you participated in two years ago, a pageant filled with pretty young thangs strutting their stuff on the stage.

Nonetheless, I covered up my wrinkles and sucked in my belly and attended the 2012 Miss LA Chinatown pageant.

‘Twas lovely to catch up with my adorable court (including Jani who emceed the event and missing dear Dow-Ning and Chantel)

Lucky(?) for the 2012 pageant contestants, I was itching to make more use of my monopod so I documented their entire q&a section and posted it on Youtube. I think this will be helpful for all future pageant contestants interested in seeing different ways of answering the q&a’s. I consider them educational videos. You’re welcome, future Miss America.

Enjoy!

posted by Janice | Comments: 0 | Chinatown, Los Angeles, Pageant, Public Appearances

Sdrawkcab

This little white Line & Dot number did something to my heart the moment I set eyes on it. Pitter patter, pitter patter.

I wore it almost the next day after I brought it home from Audrey Magazine (perks of the job).

So cute! So girly! So clean! So classy!

But…

My mom asked, “why are your butt pockets all weird?”

She then said aloud the same thing I was thinking in my head, “It’s on backwards.”

I wore it the right way with the bow on my back for a good 15 minutes and then decided to switch it back.

Sometimes, life is all about wearing something backwards and not giving a damn when people tell you your pockets look funny sticking to the sides of your butt.

posted by Janice | Comments: 0 | Fashion, Personal

My Adventure Traveling to the LA Travel+Adventure Show (aka Homemade Handstamped Business Cards Tutorial)

I had been driving past this billboard everyday on my way to work.

The words, “travel” and “adventure” called out to me. I like traveling and I like adventure.

Finally I read what the billboard was and turns out it was for a TRAVEL + ADVENTURE show that was coming to LA. In a week!

On a whim, I decided to buy tickets to the show to see what it’s about and to hopefully network my way into some press trips. I’d heard stories of a 12-year-old Steven Spielberg sneaking past the Universal lot in a suit and empty briefcase to watch movie shoots and of a 14-year-old Mila Kunis boldly exaggerating her age to land the part in “That 70s Show” and I wanted to do something bold and daring to chase my dreams! My travel blogger friend Brandon had wisely advised that this would be a good way to meet people so I decided I was going to go to the convention show by myself and introduce myself to all the booths, seeing if there were any that may want to invite me out on press trips and in return, I will write and vblog about it. Watch out, Samantha Brown, I’m coming for your job! (Actually, I would never want to take her job, I think she does a very fine…job… of it.)

First up, I needed some business cards. Being on a budget and time crunch, I looked up some nifty how-to guides on making homemade business cards out of handstamps.

All you need is a $40 kit from Staples. (This was generously borrowed from my dear chum, Helen)

I was planning on buying some pretty business card papers from which to stamp my info on but my mom had some leftover cards from back when she made her own business cards and…who can say no to free paper?

After spending over an hour sticking the letters I needed onto the stamp (I have fat fingers), I ended up with a fine, simple collection of cards to hand out!

I then stuck the cards into a professional-looking business card holder and was ready to werk it at the convention!

The cards were passed onto quite a few booths and I’m hoping some of the trips will take place.

Nonetheless, gonna pat myself on the back anyway for trying something out of the ordinary in order to attempt to get closer to my dreams. Hope you will all be inspired to do the same as well!

–

After attending the event, for which Samantha Brown was a guest speaker, I became even more of a fan of the blonde travel host. I can see why she is so good at her job. She’s lovable and charming, oozes humility and can describe the heck out of a room. Inspired! (with a hint of a girl-crush)

posted by Janice | Comments: 3 | Inspirations, Travel, Writing

Motivational Monday: Happy Lunar New Year!

Hi ho, everyone! Now that all the marks of the new year have officially begun, I am ready to share some of my — if you will — new year’s resolutions.

I don’t like to make new year’s resolutions because I feel like it’s just a setup to breaking them and one of my new year’s resolution EVERY YEAR has been to do what I say. Did that just get confusing? I hope not. Anyhoo, the words above are something I wish to keep in the back and front of my mind every day, every second of my life whether it be gossiping with girlfriends or disagreeing over something with my dad or auditioning for a new show.

2012, I’m scared to death of  you but hecka excited! Bring it!

posted by Janice | Comments: 0 | Inspirations

Flying High | Photoshoot With Paul

Paul and I had been meaning to get together to shoot some photos for some time now. After nearly 6 months, we finally got it together and met up.

…only to be confronted with the heaviest rainfall of the year in Southern California.

That didn’t stop us from shooting though.

Don’t ever let anything stop you from soaring.

Sometimes you don’t even need the aide of an umbrella.

Learning my love for vintage things, Paul loaned me his old camera to use as a prop. I turned the cameras (literally) on him!

So the rain mucked up my boots and drooped down my eyelashes and flattened my hair and gave me the shivers. Still a fun shoot!

Thanks Paul!

posted by Janice | Comments: 3 | Los Angeles

How The Janns Do Christmas

The thought of cooking food sometimes gives me the hives.

The thought of the hours spent selecting the menu, the thought of the trips to the grocery store to get every ingredient just right, the thought of the cutting, the thought of the boiling, the thought of the dishes getting cleaned up…

*shudder

But nonetheless, I offered to prepare some dishes for our family’s Christmas Eve dinner (which, next to Thanksgiving and Chinese New Year, is only the most important family meal of the year). How hard could it be? A salad, a potato side dish, a dessert. Easy as pie.

Well, when you’re me, it can be pretty hard. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to set a more fancier menu for those dishes. Meaning I wasn’t just gonna toss some iceberg lettuce in with some carrots and call it a day. I wasn’t just gonna buy the boxed mashed potato flakes.

I decided to spice up the plain ol’ mashed potatoes dish by making a variation of this recipe of mashed potatoes with spinach, ricotta, and bacon.

These here are all the brave soldiers that served for duty that night.

First, I diced the potatoes while the water was boiling. Saving time baby!

Then, while the potatoes were boiling, I diced up some onions and mixed them in a pan with spinach and ricotta cheese.

Turkey bacon also got sizzled and diced. I used turkey because it’s healthier. This is the reason why I will never be able to become a vegetarian.

My grandma started helping me mix it all together. You gotta have a grandma mixing to make this recipe filled with love.

Voila! What do ya think? Looks pretty scrumptious, no? It tasted even better the day after.

So unfortunately for me, I took too long making the potatoes that I ran out of time when I got to my fancy salad recipe (which was going to feature fancy stuff like kale. And couscous. And quinoa which is so fancy the man at Trader Joe’s had to correct me and say, “it’s not pronounced ‘kinoa,’ it’s pronoounced ‘keenua,’ you blundering ball of idiot” (ok, so he didn’t add the last part but he sure was thinkin’ it).

I did whip up a freakin’ tasty pumpkin bread but it was so yummy I forgot to take pictures of it. Here are the rest of the dishes served at the dinner…

‘Twas so nice getting my sister and cousins back for the holidays. As you can see, us Janns are more than a little enamored with the Lius.

Sisters!

Hope y’alls had a great Christmas!

posted by Janice | Comments: 2 | Food, Personal

Motivational Monday: If I Should Have a Daughter…

posted by Janice | Comments: 1 | Inspirations

Stage Daughter

I feel like a proud parent!

–

*EDIT: A few days after posting this…

Me: Ma, I posted your video on Facebook and all my friends say you are so cute!

Ma: (In a really cute voice) I’m not cute!

Me: No, you’re so cute! Like a litto itto witto kiddy cute.

Ma: I’m not cute! I’m so cool!

posted by Janice | Comments: 1 | Personal

“How Was Your Winter Break?”

I took an actual break this winter.

Like, an actual one — not a fake one where I still answered emails on my phone under the covers at night or took some business meetings and interviews (okay, so I did do that one day of the break but c’mon, you know what they say — “you can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the tiger!”

I’ve had a fairly rough December (nothing compared to last year’s but still). One that consisted of guns and holdups, traffic tickets, oil spills, and cars crashing within inches of me (I knowww!!)

So it was nice to receive this fortune cookie.

When is soon? Next week? Tomorrow? 5 minutes from now?? Wheeennn???!

Good things did happen for much of break. For one thing, an unparalleled  amount of joy.

Look at that smile on my grandma’s face! JOY!

Good things happen when you’re not looking. Can you spot that in the picture above? I do like surprises and I’m hoping this year, I take steps closer to making my dreams come true!

posted by Janice | Comments: 3 | Inspirations, Job, Writing

Christmas Thoughts

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is such a fabulous time for me. It’s wonderful because as a Christian, I can celebrate and revel in the peace of knowing that Christ had been born to save us. It’s wonderful because as a workaholic, I can take a little time to relax. It’s wonderful because as a human, I use the holidays as an reason to spend time with my family and loved ones.

I really do love spending good quality time with my family. It makes me remember how kind God was to create other people in our lives so that we won’t have to spend our time on earth alone.

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
~ Genesis 2:18

Perhaps this is a naive way of thinking but I’m curious — when did life start to develop this whole “me against them” way of thinking? When did everyone start to feel the need to protect their assets, protect their gains as though there are not enough to go around in the world? When did the privileged just want to keep what they have just to themselves and not share? When did pushing others down to make your way to the top become an envied trait? When did caring about other people become not cool? When did sharing get lost, people? We learned this in kindergarten so I know some people somewhere still felt it was important but somehow on the road to growing up, we lost some of it. When did material goods become replacements for quality relationships? When did quantity replace quality?

I don’t really care to know when any of these happen but I do wish to know why it happened. I may be lost on a lot of other things but I am not lost on this and it’s that we were made on this earth to love. Christ showed us that during his time here. When we love, miracles happens. I know this because when I heard of Christ’s love, when I felt His love around my arms, my world turned upside down but suddenly made sense. This here is a man who loved those who betrayed Him, who loved us before we loved Him. By all this world’s standards, he’s a fool. But to me, it’s someone finally worthy enough to worship.

This article on how some of our country’s richest think about the Occupy movement really irritated me when I first read it. And these details of the Sandusky case literally made me sick to my stomach. I just couldn’t believe the nerves of some people, how they can be so trapped in their own world and produce this really twisted view of life. And then I realized I am no better if I just put them off that way because the truth is, I have never been in their world so I have no idea what it’s really like. I can just guess and say things like, “oh, if I were in there position, I would NEVER think this way, I would never act that way.”

But would I really?

It just comes down to me living my life and the things I’ve seen and the things I know and the people and actions that have touched my heart. With all those things I have come to know that:

• *Happiness does not equal joy.
• *Money does not equal happiness.
• *There are so many things I can’t change in my life already so with the things I’m granted free will to change, I need to make wise decisions on.
• *I can’t change other people so I can only change myself.
• *I may only be one person and I may not be able to make all the difference in the world but I can make a difference and that in it of itself makes all the difference in the world.
• *Each person does not have the same path set for them.
• *All things are possible through Christ.

posted by Janice | Comments: 1 | God, Love