Dance, Dance Revolution.

For the past couple of days, my cousins and I have been heavily into DDR. For those of you who do not know what DDR is, it stands for Dance Dance Revolution. It’s a video game that requires for you to dance on a huge game pad on the floor. It’s quite addictive and fun, and it makes you sweat alot. I love to dance so it’s perfect for me, ME, who watches taped music videos for hours just to learn the dance routines. I’m not a great dancer or anything like that, but I can pick up dance steps really quickly.

Tonight, one of my favorite bands, Dakota Moon, played a gig at a NYC nitespot called The Village Underground. This is to promote their latest CD which is coming out in October. I wish I was there tonight in NYC. They’re such a great band. I’m sure that anyone will be a fan once they hear and see them perform live. They’re playing at The Whiskey in West Hollywood on August 3rd, the show starts at 9:45pm. If any of you are in the area, you should go check ‘em out. And hope to see you there!

Visitors, roller coasters and In Harmony.

TGIF! I’m tired. It has been a long week. Actually, it’s been a long month. Cousins and friends from out-of-state (in one case, from north of the border) came and went, all within a span of 3 weeks! Of course, we had to take them out and show them around L.A. and did the amusement park thing, twice(!) in one week. Well, it was fun and all, however, I realized that after having been tossed, twisted and jerked around, that I am getting waaaayyy too old for amusement parks! Everytime I got off a ride, a body-part starts to ache. *groan* LOL ahh…I’m still feeling the after-effects of riding The Viper (3 loops and 2 corkscrews, and about 4 or 5 drops) towards the end of our Six Flags rendezvous. Ugh. Oooh! One highlight though was my friend, winning a stuffed pink pig for me! It’s soooo cute with its round cheeks and beady eyes! I call the pig Fred, and there’s a reason…but I won’t get into that now (if you’re curious as to why I named this pig Fred, just email me LOL).

Tomorrow, my cousins and I (In Harmony) are going to sing at a youth rally at the beach which is sponsored by a friend’s church. We’re trying to get as much singing as we can as a group before I leave for Toronto. It should be a good day tomorrow, haven’t been to the beach this summer yet, so I’m kinda looking forward to going and to have fellowship with other believers.

Busy day, and to top it off, SALSA!

Had a long day at work today. And to top it all off, all 3 of my bosses were there at the office today! Usually, I only get to work with one of the attorneys at the law office, but today, I worked with all 3! My stress level just shot through the roof, and I was just exhausted from all of it.

We went salsa-dancing tonight. It was for one of my cousins’ b-day celebration, so we all went to The Conga Room in L.A. to salsa our hineys off! Well, I didn’t really get to stay long since I was really tired from work and I felt like I was coming down with something (still do, hope it’s not the flu, ugh!). I didn’t really have time to rest and unwind when I got home from work today and I had only about half-an-hour of down-time ’til we had to leave to go salsa-dancing. They offered lessons at The Conga Room, so April and I went and learn the basic steps and some sequences while, my other 2 cousins, Joyce and Christine, and 2 of Joyce’s friends from work, were having dinner downstairs. Anyway, I had no idea how complicated salsa can be, and you really have to have a good dancing partner to be able to do it right. It’s critical for the man to know how to lead the woman because he does most of the work really, the woman just does what he wants her to do. My partner was pretty good. He knew how to lead and we just kept going and going until we were both comfortable enough to stop counting, lol. I had a great time. Ahhh…my feet are dying though! LOL

On my drive home, I was listening to Avalon’s “In a Different Light” CD. My most favorite song in that CD would probably be, “Can’t Live a Day.” A good love-song for Jesus. Anyway, I was singing along with the CD during this song, and man, I was just having a hard-time reaching those high notes. The singer, Janna Potter, has such a high range for her natural voice. I was straining the whole time I was singing along with her. I’m realizing that my voice is not as strong as it used to be, when I was a voice major. Anyway, I can’t wait to get some formal voice training again. I just want to strengthen my vocal chords again. I haven’t really been taking care of my voice, and I guess a lot of it has to do with being up so late and not getting enough rest (like now, LOL). Okay, with that said, I think I am going to bed. Nite.

Dirty, dirty, dirty POP.

Another day at work. Not much to do really. I am filling in for the legal assistant here at the law office while she's on vacation with her familia. It's slow here today, so I decided to kill some time by working on my personal website which I started last week. It's coming along pretty nicely, dontcha think? I will get to the pictures hopefully by the end of the day.

What else is there to talk about? Oh, I bought the new *NSYNC cd yesterday. Yeah, I know, I caved in. LOL Can't help it. I think these guys are great performers, not the best singers, but they're amazing performers. They can really put on a great show. With this latest cd, they have totally set themselves apart from the rest (of the boy-bands, that is). They have ventured into the world of two-step garage pop, I believe that's what it's called (forgive me, I am getting old and have not been keeping up with the music scene…leave me alone!) and it seems to be working pretty well for them. I still love the ballads however. One that particularly stands out is the Brian McKnight-produced, "Selfish" which is reminiscent of Boyz II Men, harmony-wise. Ok, ok, I'll admit, I used to be a huge *NSYNC fan. I have a lot of friends who are as well. We would rip off some of their dance routines and incorporate them into our own whenever we do our little musical productions during the summer. Yeah, basically we're wannabes. Well, actually, I'm not part of that group anymore, but I miss singing with them. *sniff*

Well, I've gone on long enough about *NSYNC. What can I say? I like the CD, enough to tell y'all to go out and buy a copy, and get your "Dirty Pop" on.

Why am I stressin'?

I came in late to work today. All day I was stressin’ about whether I wanted to go Miyagi’s (a restaurant/bar/karaoke on Sunset Blvd) or not. Tuesday night is Karaoke night at Miyagi’s and my cousin decided that I should sing up on stage in front of all these strangers and ocassionally, celebrities, producers and talent agents. Well, I wasn’t stressin’ over the fact that there was a possibility that some Popstars and maybe Devante’ Swing from JoDeCi might be there. But it was the fact that I was SO not in the partying, socializing, showcasing kinda mood today. You say, “what’s the big deal? just don’t go then.” Well, that may very well be true, but my cousin from New Jersey is here in Cali, visiting, along with one of his good friends, and I wanted to hang-out with him. Hence, my dilemma. Hey, don’t get me wrong, any other day, I’d be up on stage, hammin’ it up for a bunch of strangers, doing karaoke (my song of choice “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” by Deborah Cox, a fellow Canuck). But today was an exception. Man, I’m tellin’ yah, when I’m in a mood, I’m in a mood. It’s one of my many flaws.

Anyway, we found out that Miyagi’s cancelled Karaoke night tonight so there goes that dilemma. Hah! I stressed out for nothing. We decided to hang out at the Long Beach Town Centre instead and ate at El Torito’s. Needless to say, we got our grub on! I’m not big on Mexican food, but hey, I was hungry! I actually had a chance to go to an *NSYNC concert tonight but because of the whole Miyagi’s karaoke fiasco, I missed my chance. Ah well…No biggie.

Oh, Miyagi’s is owned by Pat Morita (Karate Kid’s Mr. Miyagi, hence, the name) by the way. Okay, time to go to bed.

My DB friends.

Went to visit my friends up in Diamond Bar. It’s good to see them again, I don’t really get to see them as much as I would like to since they live far from me. Had dinner at one of my friends’ house, and then headed over to Starbucks to get some coffee and just talk. I’m gonna miss them a lot when I leave.

"Take my hand and walk..."

Well, I was late for church today. It was a good service though. We had a guest speaker today and he talked about why people need to be saved. It was very straight-forward and it also applied to those who have already accepted God’s gift of salvation.

I went to see The Kry perform at Calvary Chapel in Lakewood. It was for CC’s youth outreach night. Most of the songs that they performed were from their new CD called “Let Me Say”, but they also performed a couple of oldies-but-goodies, like “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” and “Take My Hand.” The latter is such a beautiful song, a reminder of God’s promise that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. No matter what we’re going through, He’s always there, holding our hand. Yves (the drummer) painted a nice picture of how we should trust God. He gave an example of his son, Josh, and that whenever Josh goes on the road with him and the band, he doesn’t care where they’re going as long as he knows that daddy’s there. He trusts that his dad will bring him wherever they needed to go. We should have that child-like faith and trust that God will bring us to where we need to go.

“Just like a child, holding daddy’s hand,
Don’t let go of mine, you know you can’t stand on your own.

Take my hand and walk, where I lead
Keep your eyes on me alone,
Don’t you say “why were the old days better?”
Just because you’re scared of the unknown.
Take my hand and walk, where I lead
You will never be alone
Faith is to be sure of what you hope for
And the evidence of things unseen…”