7 posts tagged “oliver”

 

Ugh, it's horrible when you have a long entry typed up and then you lose it. It's also not how I want to preface this post at all, so I'll cut the whining.

It's done, Lara's been made an honest woman of, and I've never been closer to romantic sentiment at a wedding. Maybe because she's one of my closest friends, and because I so didn't see her getting married so soon. Maybe it's because it's like watching myself get married, a little bit... when did she get so far ahead of me in sureness? She's always the last to believe something and the most likely to scoff at nonsense.  

But anyways, who cares what I think, at least until I've delivered the visuals? I'll verbal-cry later.

Here's Lara's venue, shot by Sarah Harbuck:




I only took a few pics... and uploaded even less. Here are a few I liked:
I met Kristyn @ EXCEL 20, where I found out she was best friends with this girl I knew from an email loop way back in 1998... who ended up being Lara. Haha, small world. Anyways, she's gorgeous as always. <3 She's also incredibly sentimental. Haha! See below.

It's the daddy-daughter dance...

Here is the gorgeous official photographerSara Jane photographing the chic-est bride ever.

Very much a Lara shot.

These were taken by Oliver... I'm sure he'll upload more pics tomorrow.
We bridesmaids were bored and wanted to see the fun, so we were staring out the window at the guests, much like girls in Afghanistan must feel, poor things. Then of course we hammed it up...

Maid of honor and I... "Lara's Asians." Our flowers are so droopy, it IS almost laughably funny. It's like they just finished puking out their guts, literally - you can see the stamens. We're standing on the edge of the bridge railings with our heels hanging off to rest our aching feet for a moment. Unfortunately, we forgot to dunk our bare feet in the creek afterward.

Sigh, just one year ago we were here...

...celebrating Lara's 21st in Austin with nary a thought of marriage to come. Seriously. Did she even know Kevin yet then? Man, does time fly.

Here's my refashioned outfit. I ended up having to take the belt apart and using it for straps because the strapless was STILL too big. I dun have enough to keep it up, if ya know what I mean! Stupid size 6.

Kristyn did my hair up for me... I liked it a lot. :) She made my gross unwashed hair look nice. (Why was it gross? Well, I was out downtown with friends until 5 a.m. the night before, and it was AWESOME. And I've always heard unwashed hair "sets" better anyways... it wasn't really gross, I guess, just a day old)

Shot courtesy of Sarah Harbuck.

Now I'm gonna leech off of Sarah Harbuck, since I barely got there in time to dress and get in the pictures. Incidentally, Lara had more photographers in her wedding party than anyone else I know so far! I love how everyone shot Canon. :D

I missed all the makeup and whatnot, so if you wanna know what happened, your guess is as good as mine. Look at Sarah's documentation for a better idea. I can't wait to see Sara Jane's shots - they're gonna be amazing!

Thanks for this pic, Sarah... Oliver left his dress shoes at my apartment when he picked me up, so this is what he has in this picture:
Sarah was too kind when she said "He's the only guy I know who could actually pull that off," because I disagree. :D It's OK; he provided lots of laughs for me.

I got to take a pic for the Harbucks! Cute family.

This shot is just awesome. Check out Lara's face!!

Lest you think there were no good shots...

My favorite shot with the bride... OK, one of my very few as well... but I love it. Thank you, Oliver.
Man, I'm gonna miss my girlie... at least this is one married girl who I know is never gonna change. Right now, that's incredibly comforting. :)

I really liked:

• her guy (I met him an hour before the ceremony! Good impressions, for sure)
  
• her makeup
  
• the venue
• the lighting
  
• the weather wasn't too bad, all things considered
• her jewelry
• her hair
• the cake
• the game they played
• the music was awesome
• the guests
• the LACK OF UNITY CANDLES WHOOOOOOOOO! That's gotta be the gayest tradition ever, no offense to anyone who loved them or had them or whatever. And it makes so much MORE sense for the mom and dad to walk down the aisle together. Tradition be screwed. I'll make my own, thank you very much.
  
• her giggles during the ceremony
• how she did NOT cry... thank goodness
• meeting her best friends and seeing how we're all cynical snarky females who mock Lara's choice of hot pink for a bridesmaid dress yet happily wear it for her
• subcategory: finding out how very much Deanna Isenberg SOUNDS like Lara ("I know, right?!") and laughs like her; too funny

I didn't care for:

• the mosquitoes
• the gravel in my shoes
• standing on a steep little slope into a drain in high heels during the ceremony
• walking out first not quite knowing where to go or what to do since I couldn't make it to the rehearsal
• the humidity
• you know, not too much else sucked

I can't come up with a good conclusion, and you know what, it's not a college essay so I don't HAVE to so I'm going to end this post so I can go smile happily at good memories.

I fell asleep for 12 hours straight Friday night, then went to Sephora with Olivia and Stephanie, just to get free makeovers for the heck of it. Here we are in all our glory:


Actually, I just realized I didn't have time to upload all the pictures from that excursion so lemme come back to that later... for now it's just mostly "my" glory and a cool in-the-mirror shot of Olivia and Stephanie getting their makeovers. In all honesty? And I'm not fishing for compliments here... I was not overly excited with the results of my makeup. It looks pretty dramatic, eh? I asked for "natural/beachy/everyday." Haha, at least Oliver never noticed any difference. XD

Hey, look! It's a good summary of my weekend! And if you click on the link that says "launch photo gallery," you'll see pics that Jon Huang and I took. Mine are the daytime shots; his are night shots. :) Kewl. As Stephanie Matlock said, that'll make a nice clip for me. Here are the rest of the pics I took.

So yeah, anyways, I spent my Saturday eveningish doing that. I drove out to the Travis County Expo Center (yay for not getting lost, and also for remembering to get gas before I ran dry completely) and mucked around in the dirt for a while. It's probably the most hands-on I've been in my journalism for a while.

It was pretty cool... there were a lot of people milling about, carrying cardboard and decorating little pup tents they made out of their cardboard. I had weird deja vu, probably from the Porta-Potties, from post-9/21 earthquake relief work. Just this time it was organized because there weren't actually any earth tremors or threats of imminent death looming over anyone's heads. It also reminded me of this Reader's Digest condensed book I read once, a fictitious tale about the weekend of Woodstock or something of that nature. There was a sense of hippieness that made me wonder when they were gonna bust out the bands. I got to climb up on the Fox7 news van to take pictures. It was also kind of cool how I kept running into people who wanted to give me more information/quotes. I can't expect having my work handed me on a silver platter in future, eh? I won't say I didn't work somewhat hard, though... I got pretty tired/thirsty. It was really amazing seeing so many young people who cared about making a difference, though. The Olivers, as they were known in the camp, had found some girl from the Vox New Orleans trip and set up camp with her and pals. When everyone gathered together to film for the Senate petition or whatever it was (the activity they were holding the banner in my picture for), I climbed up first onto another van, then onto a little golf cart, then onto a tall stepladder to get pictures. I realized then that I have a slight fear of heights, but I'll do a decent number of wild things to get nice shots. I also noticed out of the corner of my eye that Oliver (Wong) is also more of a photographer than an activist, running around the outskirts with an L-lens, a 5D and a laptop backpack in tow. Some refugee he'd make! "Excuse me, do you have wireless here?"

I left kinda soon after that, because I felt the need to go back and make sense out of my notes in the security of Microsoft Word. I had been told that if I stayed until morning I would be "treated to an amazing surprise," so reluctantly and in the name of good journalism I proceeded to set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. so I could drive back out there. Along the way I watched the road to make sure I could come back in the dark the next morning. After returning to familiar ground I promptly proceeded to get almost lost along the way back because I had received several calls telling me that my brothers, based on their phone answering (or lack thereof), were "missing." Turns out they went to a friend's birthday party and had been taken home late. I think I'm going to make a remarkably unconcerned/unresponsible mother, since I had figured there must be a logical explanation and had spent my time worrying about camp lighting instead.

WARNING: Some of the following could be graphic.

The American goals of journalism differ from that of, say, the Middle Eastern media outlet Al-Jazeera. American media tends to coddle the sensibilities of their audience, thus censoring raw language and gory war scenes from general viewing. On the other hand, Al-Jazeera believes that if it happens, it's fair game for the world to see firsthand. As a matter of fact, they would consider it a failing on their part to not fully expose the true state of affairs. Since I have always somewhat admired their "give it to the world straight" attitude of news coverage, I bring you the following...

So now you know the true sacrifice of being a political activist... or at least a displaced refugee. If indeed they had such antibacterial, mess-free commodes.
 
I went back to Olivia's for a shower and some female company, where we proceeded to watch some Full House (for my semester project) and some Sex and the City (not for my semester project). I worked on pictures and a bit on typing up notes while I somewhat scanned the TV screen out of the corner of my eye, but I just couldn't muster the energy to finish my article in a "burst" of enthusiasm. Hey, I was tired and dehydrated. So I zonked out on the loveseat after telling Oliver to call me if the morning surprise was worth driving out to obtain quotes.

Two incidences before I officially woke up: I apparently sleep through my alarm incredibly soundly, so when it woke Olivia up, she shook me because she thought I was dead or something. Awesome. I'm sorry for waking you up, dear.

Another one was when Mrs. Tsui called me to tell me she was at my brothers' (to take them to church while my mom is gone) and they "weren't there." She was really worried and I was a bit concerned as well, but since I was half asleep, I figured they were probably something along those lines as well. I promised to call and see if I could locate them. Turns out they had overslept as well. We Fans know how to make a good sleep.

When I woke up around 12:30, Olivia and I slowly made our way out the door first to get Starbucks (I got a huge cup of tea! I was so happy) and then to get me Which Wich before heading to the UGL to work on our respective projects. By the time the news office figured out how much space I could have for my article (12 inches, which is around 350 words or something?), I had... 15 minutes to write or else I would miss deadline. Eep. I like pressure, but I didn't have anything down except for half my quotes. I asked for a 30-minute extension and 6 more inches of text space... I like it when I've done a decently solid job researching and reporting, because then the fun part comes in putting it all together. It's much like sewing; I don't mind doing it but I hate doing the cutting and planning and cleaning up afterwards.

This afternoon pretty much reminded me that I don't ever want to work in the Daily Texan news office... not because there's anything inherently wrong with it but just because I don't like how tense the atmosphere gets. I did get a chance to speak with Jon Huang in the photo office, though, where I discovered he has a Rebel for sale for $200. I told him I wanted it for Jonathan (my brother; there are too many boys in this post who share the same name, and I just mistyped that "two many"). W00t. I spoil my brothers.

After I finished working on the story, I drove down to P. Terry's to meet up with the Vox crowd that was left after a picnic lunch and some community work, I guess. I apologize for missing that, people... I had fully planned on making it but I was just so tired out. I liked it a lot - it was my first time there and the food was pretty good. Noah Tsang is way too cute. When I grow up I want to be cool like he is. He asked me, "Do you want to play in the sand with me?" I was very sapped out and honored to be invited. We shared a milkshake and he inquired after my DS... naturally.

Post-dinner, I took Oliver to see the boys. We lounged about, watched YouTube clips, and then played Scrabble after Sam and Clyde came over. Clyde is a 15-pound Pomeranian-type creature who has Sam completely whipped in his service. It is entertaining. Scrabble was fun. Oliver was kind of crazy in the beginning, then I caught up with two cool moves in a row ("divulges," anyone?) but then ultimately lost by one point when I had awesome letters... which ended up kicking my butt because Oliver managed to use up all but one of his letters in his move, leaving him with just one more letter to get rid of. Sigh, at least I got "soy," a triple-word-grid, "frowns," and "go" all with three letters.

...I am such a nerd.

After that, I planned to go to bed but proceeded to be hungry so I went to HEB looking for rotisserie chicken and settling for cookie dough (to make treats for my professors who wrote me rec letters netting me scholarship money) and canned soup instead. After hopping into bed, I realized the Starbucks tea/caffeine had finally taken effect, so I decided to get up and write you this increasingly boring recount of my weekend, blow-by-blow... because it entertains me to do thus. Deal.

I'm testing out the tagging dealio, so I went a bit crazy.

"Put this in your pocket"
Hahaha, you got told

calmer than the sky

far away so blue

land of living God

grant your peace on earth

we can feel you move

and cannot stay the same

the winds are blowing strong

God of heaven come

breathe peace

breathe your peace on us

so we might breathe you deep

breathe peace

breathe your peace on us

land of the living God

if we are in the way

move us to the side

God forgive our wrongs

rest your hands on us

all the world is yours

let us not forget

it was you who bore the cross

God of comfort breathe