So, you may not know but I used to be big in photography. Entered contests, took several art classes and even started a camera club at my school along with my own "photography business". Over the years my drive and determination has fizzled out until I bought myself a camera and photoshop. Tonight I was editing photos from the past couple of months and just doing touch ups on the lighting and what not (they were just photos of the family from a gathering). Not really editing faces too much since they were shots of multiple people playing cards. I posted them on facebook and tagged my family in them.
About thirty minutes later my mother logged onto her facebook and then complained about how she looked, as usual, in the pics I had just posted. I went through about five hundred shots and picked at least ten of her from the ones I had ended up editing. I was frustrated listening to her. Honestly, not just her but everyone. I pick my photos wisely and when I do pick them, I see beauty. I see no such things as flaws. My mom is beautiful no matter what. Every girl out there is beautiful. Even I need to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with me. Nothing drives me crazy like hearing people complain about their pictures and how ugly they look. I understand that there are some pictures where you were caught at a funny angle and whoops! your double chin is showing. But when I go through my photos and get rid of those couple of pics everything else is natural and that's you. To me, when I go through those pictures I'm not seeing the extra curves you mention, or the pimple on your face. To me, I see a human being, a person, a loved one, a beautiful person. Always a beautiful amazing person.
Ladies, and gents! DON'T embrace your imperfections because guess what? They're not imperfections nor flaws. This is the way God made you and you are handsome and gorgeous that way. God didn't make a mistake when it came to you or anybody else on this Earth. You need to accept yourself. You shouldn't be picking yourself apart everyday. Allow yourself to have confidence, don't hold it back. Don't punish yourself and make yourself miserable. Just think of all the people that surround you and love you. They don't see anything wrong with you. They don't see the flaws. They love you for who you are and now you need to learn to love yourself for who you are. Sometimes I tell myself that if I have so many flaws then why do I have my friends, family and boyfriend? They're seeing differently from the way I have created for myself. That's my rant of the night. Please, everyone know that you are perfect the way you are. In fact, it would be so helpful if you could remind your loved ones and others around you on how wonderful, beautiful and amazing they are. Don't forget yourselves. :)
Friday, March 7, 2014
Friday, November 29, 2013
Welcome to The Little Life
Hey everybody! Long time no see... If you have been here before you will notice I have changed the title of my blog from Mocha's Midnight Diner to The Little Life. Since I am now twenty and half way through my sophomore year of college I figured a nice little change was needed. I'll still be blogging about random opinions, ideas and stories. I'm hoping to expand to giving advice and answer questions later on. We shall see what happens when we get to that point though.
So anywho, to play some quick catch up, I am currently finishing my last two weeks of this semester at a community college. To be honest, college has not been so swell for me. It's been a struggle for me to balance education, work and a social life. Every semester I have attended full time, but next semester I'm taking things a bit slower and going to be only going part time. There are some advantages to this as well as disadvantages. Such as.... I no longer qualify for certain insurance policies and I am going to behind even further than most others. Some positives to this situation would be that it's going to allow me to work more and focus on just two classes rather than four, so I'll have a better income and hopefully I can do better in my classes. Other than that, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I changed my major once and I've almost changed it about another ten more times. I had considered not attending college this upcoming semester so I could figure out what career I want to pursue, but I decided why not at least continue working on the basic courses and getting those out of the way for now. My calling will come to me soon. Just might take longer than most others.
Besides college, I work two jobs as a sales associate and busser/ server at a local restaurant. Hours have been alright now that it's winter but sometimes I can get a nice little pile up of hours over the week or weekend. Not always fun... I do love my jobs though, they can be stressful like any other job, but I work with some great people. Most who I have grown up with and others I just love so much I would consider them a second family.
I guess lastly I should tell you guys that I just got myself a gym membership about two...three weeks ago? Due to Thanksgiving I have fallen behind a bit, but I've been doing pretty well there. My best friend also joined me so sometimes in the mornings we go workout together and that's great motivation to run longer and harder on the treadmills. I'm hoping to shape up a bit for the holidays and New Years especially! I would love to look decent in my dress I've been meaning to wear for the past two years. I just need to find a formal even that I can wear it to for the holidays.
This post seems a little jumbled now that I'm reading over it, but I've come to the conclusion that really, I can't cover everything about me so I figured just giving you the basic background of whom you're reading about would get you all a nice jump start. If you continue to follow and read what I have to say I'm sure you will find out soooo much more about me. Until then though, everybody avoid food comas and be safe on these roads!
With much love,
Monica
So anywho, to play some quick catch up, I am currently finishing my last two weeks of this semester at a community college. To be honest, college has not been so swell for me. It's been a struggle for me to balance education, work and a social life. Every semester I have attended full time, but next semester I'm taking things a bit slower and going to be only going part time. There are some advantages to this as well as disadvantages. Such as.... I no longer qualify for certain insurance policies and I am going to behind even further than most others. Some positives to this situation would be that it's going to allow me to work more and focus on just two classes rather than four, so I'll have a better income and hopefully I can do better in my classes. Other than that, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I changed my major once and I've almost changed it about another ten more times. I had considered not attending college this upcoming semester so I could figure out what career I want to pursue, but I decided why not at least continue working on the basic courses and getting those out of the way for now. My calling will come to me soon. Just might take longer than most others.
Besides college, I work two jobs as a sales associate and busser/ server at a local restaurant. Hours have been alright now that it's winter but sometimes I can get a nice little pile up of hours over the week or weekend. Not always fun... I do love my jobs though, they can be stressful like any other job, but I work with some great people. Most who I have grown up with and others I just love so much I would consider them a second family.
I guess lastly I should tell you guys that I just got myself a gym membership about two...three weeks ago? Due to Thanksgiving I have fallen behind a bit, but I've been doing pretty well there. My best friend also joined me so sometimes in the mornings we go workout together and that's great motivation to run longer and harder on the treadmills. I'm hoping to shape up a bit for the holidays and New Years especially! I would love to look decent in my dress I've been meaning to wear for the past two years. I just need to find a formal even that I can wear it to for the holidays.
This post seems a little jumbled now that I'm reading over it, but I've come to the conclusion that really, I can't cover everything about me so I figured just giving you the basic background of whom you're reading about would get you all a nice jump start. If you continue to follow and read what I have to say I'm sure you will find out soooo much more about me. Until then though, everybody avoid food comas and be safe on these roads!
With much love,
Monica
Thursday, October 25, 2012
What's Your Ability?
If I had a super power what would it be? That’s a question I’m actually asked often when getting to know others. it’s an ice breaker and a fun topic to discuss. I haven’t really thought about it much thought till now. I started watching the show Heroes. The one with Hayden Penetierre. A very good, plot-twisted show. But it has brought me back to that one question again. If I could have one, what would my super power be?
Well, over the past couple of years I’ve been influenced by two major things. One of them being Asia. My dad and I share an interest for Kung Fu movies. I’ve always wanted to be a ninja, so full of stamina and energy. The mixture of free running, defense skills and being all secretive. My second thing is The Hunger Games. I was a pretty huge fan when I first started reading the books. the main character, Katniss, was a role model to me. So clever, and loving. What really got me though was her archery skills. How amazing would that be to have such precise aim and hit anything you set you eye on?
After tossing these around in my head I’ve come up with being a ninja with advanced archery skills. In my mind why not get the best of both worlds? Why not aim for something that is quite possible to reach? Now when I’m asked I throw people for a looop. Most expect something like invisibility, telekenesis, or flying, but I feel this is more me. If I ever decide to, I can always try for something like this. One day I will have that super power.
If you could have any super power what would it be?
Well, over the past couple of years I’ve been influenced by two major things. One of them being Asia. My dad and I share an interest for Kung Fu movies. I’ve always wanted to be a ninja, so full of stamina and energy. The mixture of free running, defense skills and being all secretive. My second thing is The Hunger Games. I was a pretty huge fan when I first started reading the books. the main character, Katniss, was a role model to me. So clever, and loving. What really got me though was her archery skills. How amazing would that be to have such precise aim and hit anything you set you eye on?
After tossing these around in my head I’ve come up with being a ninja with advanced archery skills. In my mind why not get the best of both worlds? Why not aim for something that is quite possible to reach? Now when I’m asked I throw people for a looop. Most expect something like invisibility, telekenesis, or flying, but I feel this is more me. If I ever decide to, I can always try for something like this. One day I will have that super power.
If you could have any super power what would it be?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
College vs. High School (Gangnam Style)
I never expected college to be so different from highschool. Especially when I'm only attending a community college. There's no drama and no cliques and no judgement! It's amazing. You can talk to anyone and easily make new friends. Even though suprisingly most people are quiet and shy at first.
I've now made friends from Ghana and Yemen. I talk to someone new every day. Everything feels so comfortable here.
One of the things that has gotten me right now is that no one has judged me on my interest of South Korea. Yes I know... South Korea of all things but I just stumbled upon it and became intrigued several years back. I can't help myself.
In my english class we are supposed to write about a relationship we have in our livves and so I chose South Korea and how it is involved everyday in my life and how over all it has changed my life as well. Well, I didn't realize we would be sharing our topics with the entire class. So one day we went around the room and told everyone what we were writing about. At first I cringed when the words first slipped out of my mouth. Then the teacher stopped and became interested. Not many people choose a country or even a culture to write about. She aske dme more questions and every day since then she asks me more and more. At this point I was happy thtat she was interested in my choice of topic but I was stilll wary of what my fellow classmates thought of me.... Until today.
today we passed around a paper with our topic at the top. Everyone had to write something about it that could help the person with their thesis. I was worried about what I would get back but then I saw the first several comments. Others thought my relationship was so cool and some have even made friends with South Koreans as well as finding the art and music fascinating. It made me so estatic. When people first find out about my passion they skip right to judgement. Even my own "friends" would tease me about it and think I was weird. It hurts when the people you thought cared about you....look down on you and make fun of you.
Now I feel great about myself and I feel pushed even more from my teacher and classmates to study abroad and travel over seas.
What are you guys judge for? Open up and comment below. :) I'd like to hear.
I've now made friends from Ghana and Yemen. I talk to someone new every day. Everything feels so comfortable here.
One of the things that has gotten me right now is that no one has judged me on my interest of South Korea. Yes I know... South Korea of all things but I just stumbled upon it and became intrigued several years back. I can't help myself.
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| My highschool buddies and I celebrating some Asian culture by cooking up some homemade Korean cuisine. So yummy! |
today we passed around a paper with our topic at the top. Everyone had to write something about it that could help the person with their thesis. I was worried about what I would get back but then I saw the first several comments. Others thought my relationship was so cool and some have even made friends with South Koreans as well as finding the art and music fascinating. It made me so estatic. When people first find out about my passion they skip right to judgement. Even my own "friends" would tease me about it and think I was weird. It hurts when the people you thought cared about you....look down on you and make fun of you.
Now I feel great about myself and I feel pushed even more from my teacher and classmates to study abroad and travel over seas.
What are you guys judge for? Open up and comment below. :) I'd like to hear.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Great Break Up
Everybody has been a part of a social network at some point. Whether is was Myspace, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. The facebook that has become so popular that they make halloween costumes out of it now. Well I have joined several of those sites but never became attached as much as I had with facebook. It started off with some photos, couple status updates every so often and that was that.
Then my junior and senior years rolled around and I had become a part of multiple clubs and other activities and I was constantly on facebook. I had good reason. So I thought. I needed to update others and gather information and create events so my friends knew what was up next weekend. It started to become my excuse. "I need facebook to keep in touch with people". With this excuse I was always on facebook... every night. If I was doing my homework I would leave it up so I could let people know I was online and looking for a conversation. I became a little obssesed with the social network, but it didn't pull me away from my education too much. I still graduated, earned an honors cord and received a fairly nice scholarship from my 80 hours of community service that year. I was proud of myself.
Now I'm a quarter of the way through my freshman year in college and the relationship I had with facebook became even worse. I had no more reasons to be on facebook everyday. I was no longer a part of clubs and groups. I did however end up deleting about 200 people who were my "friends" when in reality I've never spoken a word to them. Yet, I always was worried about my profile picture and my cover photo had to match. I needed to find something everyday to update my status. I still left the page open while I did homework in hopes that someone would start chatting with me. When I did my homework, which was always online, I would frequently get stuck and imediately I would switch to my facebook tab to "give myself a break". I thought I would "clear my mind" by reading some statuses and chatting with a friend. I found out the hard way that none of that helped me what so ever.
Last night I got home from an evening of hanging out with my best friend. We decided to wait on our homework which is usually due at midnight. So we got on skype afterwards and started working on the assignments when I realized the one and only assignment for the semester was due two hours ago... I was late and could no longer turn it in for credit. I felt like I screwed everything up. I mean, I'm still easily going to pass my classes this semester but I needed something even higher to hold onto my grant money this year. It hit me then that I spend to much with my social life and worrying about what's up with everyone else that I haven't been focusing on myself. I worked on some other homework and couldn't get the thought that I screwed up by making a very silly mistake. I know I'm smart. It's somewhere in there. I used to be a straight A student and now I average between C's and B's. I felt so much stress collect on me in those several hours that it drove me to change. So I took my first step last night.... I ended my relationship with Facebook. I went through my settings, found the deactivate button and ended it. Now I may have put that I will be back so at any point I can set it back up and get all my pictures and what not back, but I knowing that it's a whole process to get it back up I just don't even want to bother with it. Plus I feel so free to do what I want now. I feel like I have all this time in my day just sitting here. It's what I've always wanted! Time! I sat in my bed last night really thinking and I thought I can finally start reading books again, and blogging, and making youtube videos and finish writing my story! I was so estatic that this morning I finished some more homework and immediately started some outdoor chores without hesitation and now I still have all this time so it feels. It honestly feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I now just have my phone, skype and letters in the mail box to stay in touch with friends. Which I am honestly fine with. Everybody who was truly that important to me are already added on my skype and most of them are away at college right now so I get letters from them in the mail.
Take my story and think about how you're life has been. Do you wish you had more time for other things in life? Try avoiding social networking sites for a day or two and you will begin to realize how much of your life has involved these things. You will feel like you have accomplished so much more in that one day than you have done so in a week. Comment below with your thoughts and let me know if you have tried this and if it worked for you.
Then my junior and senior years rolled around and I had become a part of multiple clubs and other activities and I was constantly on facebook. I had good reason. So I thought. I needed to update others and gather information and create events so my friends knew what was up next weekend. It started to become my excuse. "I need facebook to keep in touch with people". With this excuse I was always on facebook... every night. If I was doing my homework I would leave it up so I could let people know I was online and looking for a conversation. I became a little obssesed with the social network, but it didn't pull me away from my education too much. I still graduated, earned an honors cord and received a fairly nice scholarship from my 80 hours of community service that year. I was proud of myself.
Now I'm a quarter of the way through my freshman year in college and the relationship I had with facebook became even worse. I had no more reasons to be on facebook everyday. I was no longer a part of clubs and groups. I did however end up deleting about 200 people who were my "friends" when in reality I've never spoken a word to them. Yet, I always was worried about my profile picture and my cover photo had to match. I needed to find something everyday to update my status. I still left the page open while I did homework in hopes that someone would start chatting with me. When I did my homework, which was always online, I would frequently get stuck and imediately I would switch to my facebook tab to "give myself a break". I thought I would "clear my mind" by reading some statuses and chatting with a friend. I found out the hard way that none of that helped me what so ever.
Last night I got home from an evening of hanging out with my best friend. We decided to wait on our homework which is usually due at midnight. So we got on skype afterwards and started working on the assignments when I realized the one and only assignment for the semester was due two hours ago... I was late and could no longer turn it in for credit. I felt like I screwed everything up. I mean, I'm still easily going to pass my classes this semester but I needed something even higher to hold onto my grant money this year. It hit me then that I spend to much with my social life and worrying about what's up with everyone else that I haven't been focusing on myself. I worked on some other homework and couldn't get the thought that I screwed up by making a very silly mistake. I know I'm smart. It's somewhere in there. I used to be a straight A student and now I average between C's and B's. I felt so much stress collect on me in those several hours that it drove me to change. So I took my first step last night.... I ended my relationship with Facebook. I went through my settings, found the deactivate button and ended it. Now I may have put that I will be back so at any point I can set it back up and get all my pictures and what not back, but I knowing that it's a whole process to get it back up I just don't even want to bother with it. Plus I feel so free to do what I want now. I feel like I have all this time in my day just sitting here. It's what I've always wanted! Time! I sat in my bed last night really thinking and I thought I can finally start reading books again, and blogging, and making youtube videos and finish writing my story! I was so estatic that this morning I finished some more homework and immediately started some outdoor chores without hesitation and now I still have all this time so it feels. It honestly feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I now just have my phone, skype and letters in the mail box to stay in touch with friends. Which I am honestly fine with. Everybody who was truly that important to me are already added on my skype and most of them are away at college right now so I get letters from them in the mail.
Take my story and think about how you're life has been. Do you wish you had more time for other things in life? Try avoiding social networking sites for a day or two and you will begin to realize how much of your life has involved these things. You will feel like you have accomplished so much more in that one day than you have done so in a week. Comment below with your thoughts and let me know if you have tried this and if it worked for you.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
You Know You're A Teenager When This Happens.
24 hours before school gets back in from the Holiday Break... I still had to finish playing a couple matches of MW3, skype my friend, and then maybe squeeze in some time for homework. I quickly pulled out my calculus packet and had just turned to the back page with an accomplished feeling when my eyes were drawn to the bottom of the page to see a GIANT, BOLD, message from our teacher reminding us to do our other calc homework that had been assigned over the break as well... I was devestated, but I hadn't quite given up just yet. I whipped out the yellow sheet and began by finding my derivatives. I flew through the sheet and before I knew it I had completed all my math homework.
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| My completed Drawing that I had worked so hard on. |
Next up was my Studio Art homework, which entailed me taking about 200 photos of a colored composition set up that I created, and drawing a person posing. I found my drawing which I had started a couple weeks ago and began shading. I had the munchies at the time so instead of using my fingers to blend the shades, I made myself my own tortlin. I became one happy girl because now I could eat my corn chips and shade all at the same time without getting my hands all dirty.
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| My homemade Tortlin |
After I had finished with that I decided I deserved a well earned break then, so I skyped my friend, updated my youtube account and surfed the web. By then it was 4pm so I started making dinner. (When I cook... I'm very slow and precise.) So We sat down at about 6:30 and had egg drop soup, doejang pork and we drank fizzy grape juice out of wine glasses. It was a very delicious dinner. So at that point I felt I deserved another break from working so hard in the kitchen. I went back downstairs and played some Team Deathmatch with my friends. After a couple of matches once again I helped out with some laundry and then went to my room and skyped with some friends. We goofed off until about 2am, when I had finally become motivated to do the rest of my homework before it would be due in about 6 more hours. I took about 190 photos in one hour of 8 different compositions I had set up based on colors. It was about 4am by the end of the photo session and I had cleaned up everything and went to bed. Within a couple of hours I woke up to my alarm clock going off at 6:45am... I was supposed to be up an hour and fifteen minutes ago! I figured it was wierd that no one had come and woken me so I quickly checked my school's website to see what the status was, and it turns out our little blizzard over night had cancelled school. So here I am 10 hours later, writing about this lovely coincidence that took place for me for the beginning of the New Year.
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| Griddled Doejang Pork |
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| Egg Drop Soup |
Monday, July 25, 2011
Scholarships and contests
Hey everybody! This is short, sweet and simple. Please help me get to college by voting for my picture. I really could use the money. :) Join too, and comment you link below and I will vote for you as well! Thanks so much!
http://on.ae.com/n7zJSw
http://on.ae.com/n7zJSw
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