Post-Great Bridal Expo
May 30th, 2008
The Great Bridal Show was….great! Not only great as in lovely, but great as in big. I think I talked to about 500 brides. Some brides were from as near as Alhambra, and a few were from Hawaii and Las Vegas. Some of you were inquiring for a wedding in 2010! Most of you seemed glad to be in the air-conditioned convention center and out of the 110 degrees of OC heat.
This month consisted of much email exchange; thanks to all of you who got in touch with me this month and took advantage of the 20% discount. I know sorting through all of those pamphlets can be time consuming, so if you still need time deciding take your time. Though the 20% discount promotion ends this month (that’s in two days! May 31st at 11:59 PM Pacific time!), if I’m still in the running to shoot your wedding pictures go ahead and give yourself some insurance; send me an email before June 1 saying you’re interested (no obligation at this point) and I’ll extend the discount for you until you decide. Though this does not guarantee that your date won’t be filled up it does give all of you some more time to think without worrying about the discount.
Here are ten memories that I will keep with me since this is the first bridal show ever that I’ve done (not necessarily in any order):
1) New respect for all of the entrepreneurs out there. They work the hardest! From carrying a ten-pound bamboo divider for what seemed like half a mile to going the extra mile to serve our customers, I was humbled by what it takes to simply and practically execute a dream.
2) My sister driving all the way down to help me. I think it will be the only day in her life when she says, “Hi! Enter to win a free digital frame!”, and, “Have you found a photographer yet?” at least 100 times.
3) Standing on Tommy Hilfiger sandal/heels all day and feeling okay. I have wide (and big) feet so this was a Godsend.
4) Meeting a bride named Christine Chang. She is taller and more beautiful than I! Though there are plenty of Christine Changs out there I have actually never met one in person.
5) Kindness: from the janitor lending me his screwdriver to the DJ next door lending me a rolling cart and offering kind words.
6) Close friends who prayed for me, offered me support, and were excited for me. A few of you even lent your hands and embossed my business cards for me! I was touched.
7) Seeing my church kids in the evening for youth group after a long day. I told the kids ahead of time that I was going to be late and upon arrival one exasperated kid said, “It’s about time!!!”
8. While I was gone for the day my husband went out with friends and brought home for me this insane meatball sandwich with cheese, corned beef, pepperoni, and what looked like a meat conglomerate and it was the first meal I had eaten all day…at 10pm.
9) Lying in bed at the end of the day and feeling all of the muscles in my body, I was sore from all of the moving.
10) Through all of this God really carried me through. Things would be a lot more difficult had I not depended on Him. To quote Homer Simpson, “THANK YOU JEEBUS!!!”
Wandering Thoughts
May 1st, 2008
For those of you who live in Southern California, it was scorching hot this past weekend! Temperatures soared past 100 degrees.
Extremely hot weather like that reminds me of Thailand, where even in the middle of December the temperature hovers at around 90 degrees. Thailand’s also in a tropical area, so it’s humid, which I personally prefer because I grew up for a while in Texas and the humidity makes me feel like I’m in a sauna instead of in a dry desert gasping for water.
While I was working I thought about Thailand and remembered the time when I went with some of the locals to dig for jicama. Previously I’ve seen jicama at Mexican Markets but I have never tasted jicama until my Thailand trip. The Mien people there really like jicama because it’s not too sweet. Speaking of things not being too sweet, the Mien people also like to eat unripe papayas: they shred it, add some lime and bits of seafood and make it into a salad. The papaya salad I love, but I am neutral to the jicama. It reminds me of a slightly sweet potato.
But I digress. The above picture shows some of the Mien scaling a hill after foraging for jicama. At first I thought nothing about going with them to dig for jicama. My parents in good ol’ suburban Torrance, after all, grew yams in the backyard, and my sister and I would always pick the yams while my dad tilled the ground.
But this was, by far, very different. This old lady and her college-aged daughter scaled a steep slope that seemed like it might have been steeper than 45 degrees save for some big rocks and boulders. It was December and the rice had already been harvested, so there were giant stalks of rice dried and ready…to cut your flesh. I was wearing capris and every time I walked for a little bit the stalks of rice would cut my skin and it really hurt but eventually it got numb.
I wore sandals too and thought I was going to slip off of the mountain and fall. One time I did slip and I hung onto a jicama vine sticking out of the ground and then I was just slipping with a jicama vine in my hand. You would think that if I were to lose my life at least I’d have a jicama in my hand and the goal of picking jicama was met but I thought I was about to die with only a vine in my hand.
The mom and daughter wore sandals too, cheap 50-cent sandals, and as I balanced myself near the top of the mountain I watched as they expertly weaved in a beeline around the mountain, grabbing jicama here and there, sticking jicama in their bags with dexterity.
Then I saw the mountainside and it was really something else. As with much of what I see in nature, I felt very small, happy and grateful that I got to be here to “help” (I was really no help at all; I came back with one small wimpy jicama) and to be a part of a culture that future generations might never see.
What I mean by this is that quaint villages like these are slowly disappearing. The children there are getting educated in the city, and most of them don’t come back to the villages that they were raised in. Thus these villages that are an important part of their identity are disappearing, and maybe the daughter digging for jicama today will never be able to share this experience with her future granddaughter.
This is the price of education, modernity and going into the city to earn better wages. I firmly support further education and higher wages, but somehow there must be a middle ground where the cultures of past can be preserved in some way. Culture and environment is a really big shaper of who we are.
That’s what I remembered in the midst of hot weather. Anyone else fall short of dying while harvesting a veggie? If so then I would love to hear your story.