After my first visit to San Francisco, I described Reasons to Heart San Francisco.  Well, now that I live here, my highlights so far, include:

Public Transit

You can get just about anywhere by foot, bike, bus or subway.  Not only does this make it easier to get around, you become more active by walking to most places.  If you go out for a few drinks, you do not have to worry about who will be driving home.

Parks

There are parks everywhere! Although it is a small city, you can easily access a park every few blocks.  The parks are extremely dog friendly and you can take your dog off the leash at most parks.

Fort Funston National Park

Food

San Francisco is the food meca capital (maybe after NYC).  The block I live on alone has Mexican, Salvadoran, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Southern home cooking restaurant choices.  The food possibilities are endless when deciding where to eat out.  And if you want to eat in, you can go to a produce market and cook a meal for relatively cheap.

Mexican food from MIJITA in the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market

Weather

Not too cold and not too hot is how I would describe the San Francisco weather.  It becomes extremely windy and cold at night and you always need to carry a jacket.  Once the sun comes out though, the temperature increases a good 10-20 degrees. Perfect sweatshirt weather but nice enough to lay out in the sun.

Festivals

There are countless festivals going on in the city and it seems every weekend there is something free to attend.  Food, music, art and drink festivals are the norm and who would get sick of those?

100th Annual Bay to Breakers race in the Golden Gate Park

It Chooses You, book review

I recently finished reading Miranda July’s book, It Chooses You, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The author has hit a writing roadblock while struggling to finish her well overdue movie script.  Lying around her suburban area home in sunny LA she starts reading the PennySaver ads.  For writing inspiration, she gets the bright idea to call the individuals advertising in the wanted ads.  She asks them if she can interview them about their lives.  Many people hang-up the phone on her but she comes across a few people who are not only willing but happily invite her to their home.  She gets a glimpse inside these people’s lives and discovers one common trait among them all- none of them own or even know how to use a computer.   The year is 2009.

 

She discovers how easily people are happy with very little material items in their lives.  She begins to realize everybody has a s story worth telling that is interesting, no matter how small or how little they have.  She finishes her script and even incorporates one of her interviewees into her movie.  Creating characters was not hard once she realized we are all characters making our own fictional stories on a daily basis.  You do not have to look very far for inspiration; you just need to get creative.

I would give it 4/5 stars.

In the Blink of an Eye, Book Review

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Blink, I have realized that I, like most people, make most decisions unconsciously. It is a proven fact that most decisions we make are unconscious so my advice would be to “chill out.” Since most decisions in your life an uncontrolled, whether you think they are or not, just be happy you are able to make your own decisions. If you do not live in the moment, how would you ever notice things in the “blink of an eye”?

Our inability to describe how we behave in any given moment happens in numerous examples including how tennis players or any athletes are unable to explain every movement they make. Asking a tennis player how he/she serves is not easily answered because it becomes an unconscious movement to the player. They know they have tossed the ball in the air and hit it over the net but all the variables in between get lost in the “blink of eye”; the milliseconds it takes for the player to make contact with the ball. Improv is a perfect example of thinking associated with Blink. Actors are to react quickly without knowing how the other character will respond. Advertising is directly related to the Blink thinking. We associate taste, smell, touch and color to how attractive or interested in a particular product we are. We would not want to purchase a square container of ice cream because we associate ice cream with the smoother, softer object of a circle. Therefore, ice cream containers are round depicting the flavor of ice cream on the front of the carton with enticing figures of mouth-watering flavors.

Also, our inability to understand our own minds makes us vulnerable in most day-to-day activities. We rationalize a plausible-sounding reason of why we like or dislike something and then we adjust our true preference so it is in line with that plausible-sounding reason. Every waking minute we are around or with people we are making and forming judgments and assumptions of others. We do this based on their looks, clothing, color of skin and other characteristics. The Symphony orchestra changed their auditioning process to take place without seeing the individual play the instrument. What resulted was more female musicians becoming hired as well as more foreign members of the orchestra.

I would recommend this book to anyone who finds psychology and philosophy interesting. Cannot wait to check out his other books.

Spirit of Las Vegas

My first time to Vegas was just as over-the-top as I had imagined.  Everything was bigger and more tacky than I had expected.  I took in the sights and sounds as I would any other city and I can say there is definitely nowhere else on earth compared to Vegas.  Positioned in the middle of a hot, dry and sunny as heck dessert, the city reaches maximum excitement after the clock strikes midnight.  Beautiful women line up for the clubs and gamblers in all shapes and sizes play black jack, craps or slots until the sun rises once again.

The “Spirit of Las Vegas”, in my opinion, would be “Play hard or go home.”  Very few people can win big money playing 1 cent slot machines all day nor would it be entertaining for more than a few hours.  Encouraged guests spend, spend, spend until they eventually win. Once they win, they are conveniently located right next door to a Tiffany’s, Prada, Marc Jacobs or any other high-end designer store for their heart’s desire.  Or they can attend a fancy new club and order $20 drinks by the dozen, order a lady just like you would room service or maybe, just maybe, gamble your winnings all away again.  Seems like a vicious cycle but I do see the attraction; it is hard not to miss the shining lights of the Las Vegas strip.

Head Case

Where has this show been hiding? Oh yeah, on STARZ.  Headcase was recently released to Netflix and I cannot get enough of it.  The show includes psychology, celebrities and sarcastic humor all in one. What’s not to love?

Elizabeth Goode, or Dr. Goode, is a psychotherapist with celebrity clients living in the Beverly Hills Hotel.  On a daily basis, Dr. Goode will turn her patients on the complete opposite path of self-help.  She is a loon herself and will more often than not ask her clients questions based on her own personal benefit.  Such as, “On a scale of 1-10, what would you say I am?”

In this scene, she tells her patient he needs to take a break from his fiance.  Hilarious.

And now Dr. Goode gets what she wants.

First Interviews

Going on interviews is extremely nerve-racking. The intention is for the interviewer to put you on the hot seat, ask you multiple difficult questions and see how you react. In most cases, people are well prepared, know what they are walking into and have a clear idea of how they intend to answer each question. Not the case in my first interview.

I was 20 years old walking around the job fair at college when I landed myself a decent interview with a well-known meat distributing company in the midwest. I did a great job at the campus interview and they invited me to fly to Kansas for a 2nd round interview. Now, I had never flown by myself before so I was extremely excited even though I was going to Topeka, Kansas.

The first night consisted of a dinner and reception.  Since most of the other students there were interviewing for agricultural jobs and talking with a brick wall would have been more entertaining, I went to bed early to get a good night’s sleep.  The next day they transported us to a large office building where 3 separate interviews were to take place.  First, they led us into a large conference room to watch a short video.  The video started off showing happy workers, packaged meat in the isles of grocery stores and then a slaughter-house.  Yes, a slaughter-house.  This is where the human resources internship job was to take place? They expected me to wear a hard hat, boots and a poncho to work everyday to monitor the butchering of cows! How did I get myself into this mess? When the video was over, I looked around the room for everyone in their right minds to get up and leave.  No one moved.

She is clueless about her future. She probably thinks those tags on her ears are fashion accessories.

I spent the rest of the day wistfully moving through my interviews and answering every question with complete and utter honesty.  “Could you watch a cow die,” asked one of the interviewers.  “NO,” I easily answered.  I also proclaimed my childhood dream to become an actress in NYC to one of the interviewers.  She thought I was nuts.  It was time for me to go back home and look for an internship more………civilized.

“Young Adult”, movie review

In the movie, “Young Adult”, Charlize Theron plays the 37 year-old, Mavis, faced with the reality that her best-selling teen novel series is getting canceled, her high school sweetheart just had a baby, and she probably has a serious drinking problem.  The movie takes place in Minneapolis, MN, or the “mini-apple” where Mavis has lived since graduating college and leaving the small town life she once knew.  She decides to go back home to win back her high school sweetheart but becomes overwhelmed with unpredicted challenges.

Mavis, like all young adults, wants to go back in time and figure out where she went wrong.  She faces the challenge of letting go of the past and facing her own reality.  She is wondering where the time went and struggles to move on after realizing certain chapters of her life are over.  One of the hardest parts about growing up is accepting you cannot fix the past, you can only work on the present and plan for the future.  We all plan for our future to go one way or another, but life is not that easy.  We become “adults” by facing those challenges head on and rising above.  I would recommend this movie to anyone in their mid-twenties to late thirties as that is when the real “growing up” takes place (or so I’m told).

My rating:  4/5 stars

The Hottest Drug of 2011

The hottest new drug on the market is………..drum role please……………….Facebook.  Ok, ok, it’s not actually a drug and its been on the market for years.  But, it is enhancing and becoming more addictive than ever.  The amount of FB users has increased tremendously to a total of 800 million users.  It is now the place to “hang out” for your older relatives, stay at home moms, and CEOs.  Twitter was the competitor of FB this year but in my opinion, FB will remain strong.  FB is more personal and we like to gather information from our friends and relatives vs. the daily news.

Admit it, you would probably have a serious breakdown if you could not check your FB page for over a week.  FB is now a necessity for our everyday lives and it is only getting stronger.  How were we able to survive without it?  Like a drug, we continue to use FB because we like the feeling it gives us.  Life at our fingertips.  Bored? Get on FB.  Feeling lonely? Get on FB.  It is more than a drug because it helps us track our own lives and connect with ourselves as well as others.  Look at what you wrote on FB in 2008?  Probably not the same topics concerning your life today.  We evolve and FB has decided to evolve with us.

Because life starts with Facebook

Article Reference

Chic Words

In my opinion, these word/phrases sound chic but are not.

1. “Fab!”

Why not just say fabulous? Fabulous is not an annoying word and it means many things.  Parties are fabulous, food is fabulous and clothing is fabulous.  Fab is the cheap version of fabulous.

2. “Gorg”

Same explanation goes for this one.  Gorgeous is a wonderful word.  Please do not destroy it by trying to make it “hip”.  Plus, Gorg sounds like you are gorging out on pizza.

3. “Toodles”

I can only picture Reese Witherspoon from Legally Blond using this word.  I would rather hear “Adios”.  At least it’s a real word.  Or why not say “See you later”, or a good old-fashioned “Bye”.

4. “Tooooooootally”

I could go on and on about this one.  Just agree by saying, “I agree”.  Simple as that.

5. “I know, right?”

I am the biggest user of this one. I think it’s the most ridiculous saying. You are agreeing with someone and then asking for them to agree with you again; about the same darn thing.

Meaning of Life

The new Iphone assistant feature suggests you can ask “Siri” anything. Ask her what the meaning to life is and you will get one of these responses:

1. “Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book now & then. Get some walking in and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”

2.”Life: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity and continual change preceding death.”

3. “To think about questions like this.”

4.”I can’t answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in which nothing happens.”

5. “I give up.”

6. “All evidence to date suggests its chocolate.”

7. “Life: A principle of force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of adamant beings. I guess that includes me.”

8. ” A movie.”

Awe! The inevitable question. I am about to turn 25 and I can feel a mid-mid life crisis coming on. I feel I should have accomplished more at my age. But I am happy and healthy and that is all that matters. I think the answer is #4.