I swear I'll get better at this

5 months since I last blogged? Yikes.

The summer went slowly. Each walk to work in the morning was quiet, mainly because of the absence of all the school kids I had become so accustomed to seeing. I couldn't rely on the fact that when I cross 2 major intersections the cross walk button would already be pushed by the crowd of kids waiting to cross. I also saw much fewer faces and so few orange shirts (I still haven't figured out which school has so many kids wearing orange shirts to school). By the time September rolled around I was eager to see everyone back to school, yet sad that some of the once familiar faces had disappeared. I can only guess they graduated, or transferred, or are just walking at different times.

I had one bit of excitement through that summer of walking. One fine August day I realized that they were filming the newest season of Glee at one of the schools I pass by. This was made clear by 2 things. 1. Those yellow signs with an arrow that everyone in LA knows is a sign for filming, with the initials WMHS which I could only assume were the initials from the high school in Glee. And later that day as I walked home from work, I saw lots of security and trailers, but also an extra in a Cheerios uniform. And if you watched the first episode you saw it, the scene where they filmed the food fight, that was filmed a mile from my house!

I still love my walk, though it is starting to getting darker, which is obviously not ideal, and with the darkness comes the cold, which is really not my favorite. But I guess that's just how it goes with the seasons. See, we do have seasons in LA!

I really enjoy my walk to school, I mean my walk to work

I start every weekday with a 20 minute walk followed by a 45 minute bus ride. It's one of my favorite things about the day cause I get my exercise and some reading in before I even start work, and often times I've listened to a podcast too. In the span of 20 minutes I pass roughly 4 schools, 1 middle school, 1 high school, and 2 elementary schools and I've really enjoyed the familiar faces I see as I go. I can even tell how late I am depending on at what point I pass someone.

I take this all for granted and only noticed how much I enjoy passing teenagers and young kids when for the entirety of last week, I passed almost no one. LAUSD was on Spring Break and so I started my morning with a very lonesome 20 minute walk to the bus. It was still an enjoyable walk, but I enjoy seeing certain people.

There's the nerdy kid I pass first, who still won't smile back at me. The really trendy girl and her guy friend who always smells intensely of perfume. The mom and daughter who often cross the street with me. The mom and son who pass me, linked arm in arm. Then there's the rock kid with really big hair. And last there's a girl and her boyfriend who are always attached. I missed all of them the past week, and it was really nice to have them all back again. It's sad to think it will be short lived as summer is approaching and the streets will once again be lonely in the morning.

But for now, I'll enjoy it, and take this as a sort of replacement for the fact that I was never really able to walk to school cause it was too far. I hope all the people I pass enjoy it as much as I do, and that they keep walking.

A hair update

It's now been almost 2 months since I last washed my hair with shampoo of any kind. When I get in the shower, I do what basically every other person does, I just do it without shampoo. I still wet my hair and massage my scalp to get rid of the dead skin cells and brush it and then I get out and towel dry. I'm really happy with everything. I don't think of my hair as too oily, in fact, it just sort of maintains a nice healthy level of oil. My hair feels nice, and it smells like hair. The only downside is that after I shower and I brush my hair there is a grey lint type residue that comes off my comb. It goes away after I come it a couple times, but it's still kind of gross at first. I have found that intensely massaging my head in the shower as well as when I towel dry really helps to reduce the linty stuff.

Regardless, I'm willing to deal with it so I don't have to put a bunch of chemicals and stuff in my hair, plus my showers are shorter and I generally feel like I use less water. So yay.

The world needs more bike racks

I never used to think about bike racks before. But that was probably because I had a car or something. Now that I share a car with my sister and my main forms of transportation involve a bike and/or public transit, I think about it a lot. I can think of two main examples in my life at the moment.

The first, is my work place, though I've been taking the bus because I can read on the way and have a nice 20 minute walk each way, I do have the option to bike if I want and it would take me the same amount of time and I did this the first week I worked here. Now the problem is that there isn't really anywhere for me to put my bike when I get here. I work in an office in Beverly Hills, and so I can't really store my bike in the office because it would be sort of in the way and awkward and there isn't anywhere I can lock in the back of the building, so I was forced to lock it to a parking meter downstairs. OK great, a parking meter is a completely legit place to lock my bike, but that doesn't mean I feel totally awesome about it. Ideally, there could be a bike rack where the employees park and take their smoke breaks, it wouldn't take up much room and would make me feel much better.

The second, became apparent just this past Sunday as I went to church at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels here in Los Angeles. I live less than a mile from the Cathedral and obviously rode my bike there. I walked in the pedestrian entrance and asked the lady at the Visitor Information desk if there was somewhere I could put my bike, and she replied in completely serious manner, that bikes were in fact not allowed. Not allowed! What kind of policy is that? I ended up parking my bike to a handrail and I felt pretty crappy about it, but the doors that it led to were closed, so it made me feel a little better. This is a church in the middle a downtown Los Angeles, it's accessible by car, by foot, and public transit, it also has ramps and elevators for the handicapped, and somehow there are no bike racks. I think this is a serious failure on many points. 1. Church should be accessible to everyone, and if it's not there's a good chance you're losing some people. This is the biggest failure to me because there are so many Latino boys in LA that ride really cool bikes, Latino boys who are probably Catholic, and they are apparently not riding their bikes to church or not going to church at all 2. We should be encouraging people not to drive, I noticed first hand the line of traffic that is caused by people trying to get into the parking lot, and that could be a little shorter if a couple more people biked 3. You would be more likely to have people who don't usually, come to mass as they passed by.

I really love riding my bike places, and hopefully it will eventually become easier for me to ride places with new bike lanes/sharrows and more bike racks to encourage bike usage.

I'm never buying shampoo again!

It's been over 2 weeks since I've used shampoo and I'm not going back.

This all started while I was reading my blogs at work and GOOD had a challenge for the month of January to go without using soap (except for like before you prepare food and after you go to the bathroom) for the month of January. The post I read was an update from someone who had been doing the challenge for 2 weeks and he said everything was going well. So I looked in to it a little further on the internet and thought I would try it. I also found an alternative to shampoo, using baking soda, and then apple cider vinegar as conditioner.

Things are awesome. I shower daily, with just water, so I don't smell, and once a week I'm washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar. I'm hoping that as time goes by I'll have to wash it less and less. The key I think, is to wean yourself off shampoo instead of just going cold turkey. Switch to the baking soda and vinegar method and just wash your hair less and less. Everyone always complains that their hair is too oily, but it's only too oily because you shampoo it so frequently. So stop washing it so often and things will be great. I feel like my hair is softer now than it ever was when I used shampoo, plus, I shower so much faster now, and spend less money on both products and water.

I'll try to get some pictures up later of my hair and how it's looking, but so far, I am really pleased.

On riding the bus in LA and other things

When I tell most people that I'm from LA, I usually get this funny looking face. That face can lead to a confession that said person thinks other cities are better, that they think LA has too much driving and too much smog, or that they think we don't have good, reliable public transportation because we don't have subways.

As a somewhat native Angeleno (I was technically born in Woodland Hills, though raised in Simi Valley, and now live in Echo Park) I can say that I love LA, and get severely disheartened when people tell me these things without even having been to LA! So, I wanted to write a little bit about what it's really like, and as someone who has sat through hours of freeway traffic and now currently rides public transportation, I feel like I can really speak about people's issues with LA.

First, the smog thing, yes, on bad days, LA looks terrible because of the smog and I'm sure part of that has to do with the amount of cars are on the road, but it's not entirely our fault. For starters, most cities clear away their smog with frequent rain, but here in LA, we don't get nearly as much as other cities do, so the smog lingers. Then, during the summer, we get this thing called an inversion layer, which basically traps all of the pollution within the lower parts of the atmosphere, not allowing it to dissipate. And then of course, LA is surrounded by a bunch of mountains, so while in a lot of other places, the pollution can dissipate outwards, ours is all stuck. Believe it or not, there was once a time when someone proposed blasting a hole in the mountains to let all the pollution through. So really it's not entirely our fault, and actually, the air quality is getting better as emissions controls are increased.

On to driving, which I did everyday one summer on my commute to UCLA for work. LA traffic sucks. It totally sucks, which is probably why I try to avoid it during rush hour. If it's not rush hour, you can get most places rather quickly. In order to avoid the rush hour traffic, or at least make it less painful, I've carpooled a lot, and am now biking/riding the bus to work. I have a relative, who actually works from the hours of like 11am to 8pm so she can avoid the rush hour traffic. So yes, it's pretty terrible, but only during rush hour. Otherwise driving is pretty nice, there is usually a lot to see and you can get where you need to go.

And last, public transportation. A couple summers ago, I lived with my sibling and rode the 720 down Wilshire to get to UCLA for work and loved it. Now, as a full time employee, I am back on the 720 and loving it still. For those unfamiliar with LA public transit, it's mainly an intricate network of buses. There are like 4 rail lines, and two busways, but most of it is buses on streets, doing their thing. It's important to note that there are two types of buses, the local buses that stop on like every other block and the rapid buses like the one I ride. I've come to decide in my time, that these rapid buses are sort of like LA subways, they stop at the main intersections, go crosstown, and carry a lot of people. In terms of sheer numbers, the bus I ride, the 720, moves 80,000 people every day! Service would be better if we could get some bus only lanes for these "LA subways" so those 80,000 people wouldn't have to be subjected to all the other traffic, but that's a whole other battle. And though Wilshire isn't the smoothest ride, I don't have to sit behind the wheel of a car and I can read while getting where I need to go. Plus, I get to meet all sorts of cool people on the bus, some with really awesome loud iPods, others new to the city, and even tourists from Germany. I love the bus, and I love all the lovely people of color I ride the bus with and I will always love LA, no matter what other people say.

Being vegetarian in the non-Obie world

When I became a vegetarian 4 years ago, I was in the middle of my first year of college. Life was great, I was learning, meeting new people from all over the place and I went to the most awesome school ever, Oberlin. Though I have thought about being vegetarian for most of my life because my sibling has been vegetarian/vegan for a long time, I never thought I could actually do it. And then, amongst many friends that were vegetarian, and a dining hall with a wide option of tasty non-meat dishes, I officially became vegetarian.

Being vegetarian at Oberlin was so easy. Not only were there vegetarian options at every mean, there were even vegan ones as well. I also learned quickly, at a conference in Notre Dame, that this was not common practice. For a week at Notre Dame, I tried desperately to eat well and stay vegetarian when my options most days were pasta and salad. But for the most part, things haven't been that difficult. When I went home, my sibling and I would just eat the same food and at school there were many options. Once I started eating in a food co-op, most of our food was non-meaty and my days were so simple. Sometimes when I went to a friend's house for one of our breaks things got a little complicated, but never too bad. I was always with another Oberlin student who completely understood why I was vegetarian and I was among very accommodating hosts. From Italy to New York and Chicago and all the way down in New Mexico, life was great.

Things got complicated as soon as I stepped foot in the Philippines. Attending Filipino parties here in the States wasn't bad, my sister had been vegan and now I was vegetarian, and most of our relatives were pretty good about either getting something we could eat or letting us know to bring our own. The Philippines was a whole other world. Being vegetarian there will get you a very confused look as most people are big on meat and when I've tried to explain the reasons for me being vegetarian, people are still confused.

It's not that difficult to understand, well, I don't seem to think it is. I don't eat animals, anything that walked, swam, or flew, for various reasons. As a cognitive thinking person, I've learned that I can get all of the nutrients I need from plants, and thus do not feel like we as humans have the right to kill other animals for food. As someone who cares about the environment, and this planet, I recognize that the amount of energy that goes in to raising animals is far greater than that of plants. And as someone who cares about animals, I recognize that the American food system is terrible because we feed animals things they aren't supposed to eat, raise them in cramped conditions, and slaughter them inhumanely.

Now I'm not sure what exactly about these arguments bothers people so much, but I have definitely had some very frustrating arguments with people about being vegetarian. The worst of which came while sitting at the kitchen table of my best cousin ever, talking with another relative. Though I don't remember details, I remember that this person did not understand any of the points I made, spoke with an "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude, and ultimately, I didn't feel like they respected my decision.

Though most of my family isn't particularly thrilled by the fact that I'm vegetarian because I am harder to feed, I feel like they respect my decision and love me regardless, and do their best to feed me and for that I am seriously grateful. And at a time when I have to constantly reaffirm the fact that I'm Filipino, it doesn't exactly help my cause that I don't eat meat, but thankfully, as my cousin has stated, I'm loved for who I am and not what I eat. I can't imagine that being vegetarian is going to get easier, unless of course, I move back to a hippy, college town, since a majority of the US still eats meat, but I feel like it's important for me to explain to people, especially my family, about my decision to help shed light on vegetarianism and veganism. And until things get better, I'll just have to deal with people not understanding and learn how to navigate the non-Obie world.

New Year, New Country, New Job

I got home from the Philippines just in time to finish my Christmas shopping and make it to all our family parties with stories to spare.

The Philippines was great, it always is, and I'm finally getting better with my bisaya (my mom's dialect). I'm paying more attention, listening for words, reading things online, and looking things up or asking about them when I don't know what something is. I'm doing so well, my cousin felt the need to comment on how many short conversations I had understood while in a car of 3 people speaking bisaya. I felt very proud, and want to impress the rest of my family with how much I will continue to learn.

The holidays were also wonderful, as they usually are. I got to see lots of family members, and catch up with people and bake zucchini bread, as I've always done in years past. Granted I made a lot less than usual, but I'm getting better at making it vegan now, and it's still irresistible. I also got to see Lauren while she was in LA and it was great to just hang out, catch up, and hang out in East LA. The New Year went well too, as my sibling turned another year older, and we finally had the whole family around for the first time in a couple years. We counted down, made a lot of noise, and ate a lot of food, before finding our way home around 3 am.

That Sunday was the baptism for my newest nephew, Cal, and since getting to the ceremony was going to be difficult, I went straight for my cousin's house to be nice and wait for the food while everyone was gone. There were a lot of family members, a lot of pictures, and a lot of food I couldn't eat. It got late and the bus stopped running/my cousin needed to sleep for work the next day, so I joined the party and slept over too. I got to spend the next day with aunt and uncle, cousins, and nieces and nephews. We hung out, played games, got haircuts, and I made eggs. I also got a call back about a job interview I had, and was starting work the following day!

This family has always lived relatively close by, though with me being in school and all over the place, I've only recently gotten to spend more time with them. The kids are remembering my name now, which is awesome, and I'm bonding more with my cousins. I love them a lot, as I do with most of family, and I'm going to really try to spend more time with them. If I have any sort of resolution, it's to see people more often now that I'm home. I spent 4 years away at college, sort of MIA to people here and now I'm going to work on fixing that, and with the help of a bike, and the metro it shouldn't be too bad.

The only difficult part is that I'm at work/in transit from 745 am to 7pm, which leaves me barely enough time to eat and relax a little before sleeping to get up and do it all over again. The nice thing is that I do get to read on the bus/listen to Rosetta Stone or whatever music/talk to people and I walk 2 miles everyday up and down hills. I work for a small company that helps people get their passports and visas, generally we're an expediting service, but sometimes people pay the extra fees just cause they don't want to do it themselves. While I'm doing general office stuff like answering the phone and processing paperwork, it's somewhat cool cause it's all travel related and I can live vicariously through other people going to China, Brazil, India, Bora Bora, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. And hey, I'm getting paid, which is probably the best part because I needed income.

So lots of new things for the new year, but all good I would say. I don't really make resolutions, other than the one I mentioned earlier to see people more, cause I just want to live a good life and be proud of myself and what I do. And hey, I'm still a Virgo!