#cppcom317

[hayden-jen-yi-blog]

I love challenges....... when I was Young!

I love to challenge myself when I was a little kid. I drew four pictures for you guys lol. Took me a while but I think is much more interesting than words.

...Yeah that's what happened when i was in 5th grade.

ANYWAY

I HATE SPIDERS!!

The world is full of life. I can see insects everywhere I go. Even the safest place, my house, can spot the life of insects. Sometimes insects can be really helpful for the environment and human. I really enjoy the Discovery channel show called Man VS. Wild. In the show, a British Special Forces specialist named Bear Grylls demonstrates how to survive in the desert, rain forest or the swamp. He also teaches us what kinds of insects that we can eat. For me, I tried it one time and it did not go well. I ate some kind of green beetle and it tasted like the cheese that past the expiration date, so it was horrible. I have seen people in Asia countries eat insects. They said that they are full of protein and vitamin which I really don’t know it. Some insects are good for the environment. It is very common to see some kind of big brown mosquito with long legs in the house. Every time I see it, I find a book from my brother’s desk and throw it with the full power of my strength. One day I was doing some research in the library, I found out that this kind of insect eat smaller insects and it does not suck blood from human body. So I realized that not every insect is harmful. In my experience, I have met so many kinds of insects in my life so far. Personally, I really afraid of spiders because when I was about 7 years old, there was a huge earthquake hit Taiwan where I grew up. Fortunately my house did not fall and nothing really damaged, however, there was a large crack on the wall of the living room that was so big we could even look through the crack and see the cross building of my house. One day, I was sleeping and somehow I felt something crawling on my arms and my face. I got up and turn on the light; I saw at least twenty spiders in my room. So I screamed and my parents took me out of the house while calling some experts to solve this chaos. The next day, I had a fever and it was very serious. Mom and dad took me to the hospital and turned out that I got bitten by spiders and at least six or seven bites all around my arms and neck. I spent for almost 2 weeks in the emergency room lying on the bed. After that when I see spiders around me, I feel the illness in my brain. The reason that I do not like spiders is not their horrible looking, but the mental illness of my body.

[samantha-calderon]

The Beginning of My Solo Career...

April 2012 was the month I took a short two-hour drive to the best decision I have made to date. Let's rewind a bit though.

For this all to make sense here is a little back-story...I am Florida born and raised. In middle school, I began playing the trombone for the school concert band where I met my dear friend Anthony. Anthony and I in 2005 moved out of South Florida. Anthony left to Virginia and I came to California. Even though we separated at that young age where you start making new friends and forget the old ones, we found that our friendship was valuable and have remained friends until this day.

Fast forward to February 2012. During one of our many conversations, I asked him what he was planning for his 21st birthday. He told me he was going back home to Florida to visit his parents (he is stationed in Kansas; United States Air Force). That's when I said, “I am coming to Florida for your birthday!” At first he didn't really believe me because it had been so difficult to plan such a trip with our schedules and I admit, I didn't know how possible it would be either because it was only two weeks until his birthday keeping in mind the cost.

But I booked it in true Samantha fashion, with little time, but luckily I found an amazing deal! I think the round trip ticket from Ontario to Tampa was $250 total. Needless to say, the travel stars were aligning quite well.

So I flew off to Florida and spent a week with Anthony and his family.

There it was, my first trip, where my solo ways began...

The conversation began on April 7, 2012. 

My motivation was very simple, I had to go; there was no question about it.  The lineup was something that probably would never happen again and I could not pass up that opportunity. 

The week leading up to that Saturday conversation I had been asking any and all friends on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr the infamous question, "Who wants to go to Coachella with me?" 

To my surprise, no one wanted to go. No one was interested in the best Coachella Music Festival in the history of Coachella!

That didn't stop me though, at that point I decided that if I want to be happy with my life then I had to take action and not rely on anyone to stand by me while I take those actions. 

My motto: Not everyone can handle your Journey, so keep calm and move on.

So, I went onto the Coachella fan page on Facebook and responded to a few posts of people selling their tickets. None were really what I was looking for until I messaged this guy Kurt who had a ticket for sale in Lake Eldorado. I didn’t think I could afford it because it's like a little village where tents and bedding are provided, which means $$$.

But I spoke to him anyway and told him the truth. Since the quarter had just begun I was tight on cash, but he was so understanding and agreed to sell me the ticket for his four person tent at a super low price! 

Obviously I did a little recon and asked him lots of questions because I was taking a major (life threatening) risk by staying in a tent with COMPLETE strangers. 

But I was still on the fence about going. I mean I was going by myself, to Indio, to meet three complete strangers (Kurt, male; Erin, female; and Keely, female) from Canada, who I hadn't spoken to on the phone or skyped with at least and stay with them in a tent for five days. All things considered, my indecision lasted until April 12th, the first night you can check into the festival.

I came home from school, debated a bit whether to go or not, had my parents lecture me on the risk I am taking and in the end grabbed my bags and packed!

I stopped at the bank to pick up the cash I needed for the weekend and I was on the road! Still a little nervous, I made it to the site around 11:30pm and met with Kurt, who was wearing a devil horned knitted hat. 

But I marched forward.

That whole weekend was an unforgettable experience.

I saw most of my favorite bands, some I managed to squeeze my way to the front for. Enjoyed the outdoors where even phone signal was minimal. Saw some of the weirdest after hour performances by independent artists and I made friends that will last a lifetime. 

[alexmraz-blog-blog]

Tis' the Season

Well my favorite time of year is finally here... HALLOWEEN.

I love the costumes, the movies, and of course all of the spooky events.

I am going to Universal Horror Night next week and I will be attending Rob Zombie's Great American Nightmare at the Pomona Fairplex. I love seeing the costumes and all the work that goes into putting these events on. I'm not really a fan of Knotts Scary Farm because honestly I do not find it scary at all.

Now for the scary movies, I am not scared easily. The only movie that ever scared me as a kid was E.T. (Lame, I know. He was just very ugly and creepy).

My favorite horror movies are the lame 80's movies. Even though they are insanely cheesy, I love that they used to terrify people when they first came out. Out of all the iconic horror movie killers, my favorite is Freddy Krueger. In high school, I asked my mom to get me the Nightmare on Elm Street box set for Christmas, she said no and that it was too creepy of a gift. Thankfully, my grandmother came through that year.

The reason I find myself loving the older scary movies is because every horror movie that has been coming out in theaters, in my opinion, is absolutely terrible. Everyone boasted about how The Conjuring was one of the scariest movies of all time. The only thing that was remotely scary about the movie was the doll at the very beginning of the movie. Other than that, I found myself being insanely bored throughout the movie. The only movie to come out recently that actually creeped out me out was Sinister. Ethan Hawke is the main character who plays a true-crime writer. He moves into a home where a family was killed so he could hopefully uncover the truth about their murders. He finds a box of old 8mm home movie films that suggest the murder he is researching is the work of a serial killer. This serial killer films all the brutal murders of families all the way back to the 1960s. Honestly, the home movies were the creepiest part of the whole movie. If you want a good scary movie this Halloween, check out Sinister.

#cppcom317

[simatopchyan]

Nope! Nope!

What’s big, hairy, and sometimes poisonous? Tarantulas!

When I think of spiders, I can’t stop saying the word “ew” in my mind. I’m pretty sure most of you guys are either disgusted or afraid of spiders, or both. Ever since I was a kid, I have always been disgusted and extremely scared of spiders of any kind. If I ever spotted one in my house, I would yell out for my brother or dad to come and kill it.

So one day during my Speech 101, back at my community college, my teacher was giving us ideas about our speech topics. He had mentioned that we could bring things to class; kind of like a show and tell. I don’t know what exactly I was thinking, but my bright idea was to bring a huge tarantula to class, because I knew nobody else would do that. After class I drove to a shop called Scales & Tails in Burbank. I was about to face one of my biggest fears. The shop had over 20 different types of tarantulas, and there was one that was a cobalt blue. That was the most beautiful spider I had seen, but she was too pricey to buy just for my speech class. Around the $20 range, the worker showed me “the Chilean Rose” tarantula. She was covered in reddish-orange hair, and it looked almost pink. He took her out of her little box and held her right before me. Words cannot explain the amount of fear I was feeling. I was afraid to move, thinking the tarantula would jump on me. The worker put her back in the box and asked me what I thought. Honestly, I don’t think I was thinking at that time, because I bought her!

I’m driving home freaked out because I have this huge disgusting tarantula sitting in my car. I’m thinking how I will explain this to my parents, and hope they won’t freak out and yell at me. When I got home, my dad was home, and I decided to show him first. He got freaked out so bad! He didn’t want that box near him either. My mom on the other hand, who I thought would be scared the yell out, was completely relaxed about it. I wanted to mess with my mom, so I told her, “Oh my god mom, there is a giant tarantula on our kitchen wall!” My mom responded back, “Really? Where show me.” When I did show her, she was like oh it’s in the box, that’s fine.

Anyway, as hard as it to believe, I had a tarantula for a pet in my house for about week until I took her back to the Scales & Tails shop. Also, most importantly I had an awesome speech in class, and of course got an A plus! 

[juanalopez21-blog]

Emotional

Yesterday they played tribute to Finn/Cory on Glee and it was such an emotional moment; you could see the pain behind everyone’s eyes. The whole time it felt like they were just being themselves and not acting, all the tears that rolled down their eyes were real. The person whom I felt the biggest pain from was Rachel/Lea- oh my god it was so hard seeing her sing while trying to hold back her tears, I cannot even imagine losing my loved one like Lea did, it's like one second they're here and the next moment they're gone. I could not stop crying the whole time I was watching it, it broke my heart into a billion little pieces and I was not even a huge Glee fan but the purpose of that episode was enough to drive any sad emotions. "The Quarterback" episode really got me thinking, what if I were to lose one of my loved ones? How would/could I ever handle it? The thought itself drives me crazy; I literally think I would end my own life if I was ever to lose someone special. I might be a strong individual in many ways, but emotionally I am as weak as they come. There was a part in the episode where Finn's mom breaks down because her son died, she said "I see this on TV all the time and wonder, how do they breathe? How do they move on?" From a mother's standpoint that really stood out to me because if (God forbid) I ever lost my son, I would ask myself those same questions- I could not imagine a bigger pain. Always remember to tell the people whom you care about how much they mean to you because you never know when someone's last day may be and you would not want that person leaving without hearing how much they really meant to you. Live every day like it's the last day of your life. Now you all know what my biggest fear is.

[llcorcoran]

Detroit Rock City

Last week, my family and I traveled to Michigan for my brother’s wedding. I had never been there and was not entirely sure what to expect. The wedding was to be held in a suburb south of Detroit, Grosse Pointe, but the hotel for out of town guests was in downtown Detroit.

 Now, my imagining of Grosse Pointe was strongly influenced by the John Cusack film, Grosse Pointe Blank. I love that movie and when we drove around the lake and took in all the large and lovely homes, I was satisfied that the expectation I had of that town was more than met.

As for Detroit, I have to admit, I was a little concerned. If you have paid any attention to the news in the last couple of years, Detroit has been held as the model of the death of the old American ideal; a once thriving metropolis, built upon the prosperous manufacturing industry of automobiles. This is the town that Ford built. Today, Detroit is reported to have the worst crime rates in the country. It is the largest American city facing bankruptcy. Decay has burned through the city like a wildfire leaving empty buildings, factories and homes in its wake. And I was going there with my husband and two young children. I have traveled throughout the US, Mexico, Europe, and even Northern Africa, but none of those adventures gave me pause like Detroit.

In the many months leading up to the wedding, I had been watching interviews and videos by a journalist and Detroit local, Charlie LeDuff. LeDuff is an award-winning journalist (Pulitzer Prize while at the N. Y. Times), or as he refers to himself, a reporter. According to LeDuff, Journalists are reports who don’t have to look at the keyboard when they type. LeDuff was raised in a modest family in a Detroit suburb and witnessed first-hand the demise of his hometown. He is a straight talking reporter who has pulled back the curtain on the devastation of his home town, but also has effectively relayed the stories of the people who still live there. He wants to see the city recreate itself and believes that it has to be done, in large part, by the families and neighbors that are still there.

Here is a link to a great video LeDuff made to demonstrate the dire situation the city is in, as shine a light on the many people who call it home. He decided to golf 18 miles from one end of Detroit to the other. The very idea that a man could even do this points out to how empty and desolate most of the city is. It is an amazing video that reveals some depressing images and some human ones.  

The Detroit I experienced was of a once great city that is largely abandoned, but at its heart is amazing culture, history, and community. People throughout the country and the world are watching Detroit to see how this will all work out. How a once mighty city has fallen, and how it might reinvent itself should be an interesting thing to unfold.

[llcorcoran]

Is this thing on???

Test

[samantha-calderon]

I'm A Traveler, Not A Tourist

The Dalai Lama says, "As often as possible, go someplace you’ve never been before."

Who am I to ignore the Dalai Lama? So I must confess, I am kind of a travel junkie. The feeling of picking a destination, booking a flight and getting on an airplane is an addiction I can't seem to shake off, nor do I want to. 

As I travel more, I meet all kinds of people both similar and dissimilar to me. I’m referring to Team Tourist and Team Traveler.

What’s the difference?

The traveler community finds that having an itinerary laying out every mealtime, bathroom break and photo spot is a waste of an unknown land. It promotes narrow mindedness because the tourist only sees what the tourist dollar can pay for; I mean that in the least offensive way. On the other hand, unlike tourists, travelers take pride in not making any further plans than what is stated on their flight itineraries and being armed with an open mind.

I am a traveler and just like my fellow comrades I follow two rules, just go and just do. Anything and everything is fair game. Each experience leads me to another experience and then another and another.

Like the Dalai Lama, I find that it is my duty as a citizen of the world to experience new places and new things.  I say my duty because as much as I want others to get to know me, I find it only right to get to know other people. The exchange of perspectives, values and taste is priceless knowledge with endless benefits.

This way of being has proven to be the best way and the only way, in my book, to see what I want to see and more often then not, see what I didn’t know I wanted to see.

Most Recent Landing Place

August 2013: Me at the airport in Punta Cana waiting to board the plane. I couldn't be happier to have spent an entire week without ANY technology.