Demi Lovato interview hits home

Every now and then I read interviews by celebrities that actually pull at some serious heartstrings inside me. In this case it was the unexpected short interview I saw on Yahoo news by teen celeb Demi Lovato.

The interview's title was focused on how the young celeb shut down her haters at one of her concerts. But the part of the interview that was more interesting to me was the fact that she subconsciously and on purpose keeps friends at bay.

Lovato admits that she sometimes unintentionally distances herself from her friends and its up to those around her like boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama to call her out on her own shenanigans.

“Wilmer is that person,” she says, adding that her BFF Marissa is another pal she can rely on.

“Sometimes I’ll isolate a little bit. I won’t reply to people’s text messages, or I’ll just distance myself from everyone unintentionally, and she’s the first one to call me out on it,” Lovato says. “It’s because I’m going through something. I’m stressed or depressed.”


I tend to do the same thing many times. I think I always feel like to a certain degree I always have to act when I'm around other people. Even people I've known some people for awhile, I still feel like I have to portray some sort of character.

I've always been a loner, so it is no surprise that I have this pressure to act more excited, or happier than how I would naturally act if I was alone. Not to say I'm fake, I just have to make myself have a little nicer, or cooler than what I actually am (haha I'm cool but not that cool it's what I mean ;])

Because of this, many times, I cancel on plans with friends at the last minute, I don't reply right away in fear I'll get coaxed into going out. Sometimes other people cancel on me, and I think 90% of the time, I've had a rush of excitement come into me. I think the only times I have actually felt annoyed/negatively affected by it, is when I was already dressed up and was actually looking forward to going out. If that's not the case, then I'm like, oh yeah a whole day of not getting out of my PJs day is here.

Even when I'm shopping, I would rather do it alone. I like watching movies or shows by myself as well.and doing random video browsing (If I feel like drawing a picture of my dog on Paint, damn it I wanna do it alone).

Of course, after a while of being by myself, it does feel nice to meet with friends and have good conversations as a group. Currently I have a boyfriend of 3 years, and he is one of the only people I can be with even when I don't wanna hang out with anyone else. And he constantly wants me around, so we spend a lot of time together; but even with him I get overwhelmed and need times when I have to be alone - to recharge myself.

I guess everyone is different, and at times I guess I wish I could just be a little more outgoing and perky by nature. But I'm not, and I can't keep on wishing to change what I can't. My suggestion to anyone having the same issue would be to just try to accept who you are. Sounds like the most cliche advise I know, but it is the only thing that will truly make you happy. It's is more important to make yourself happy after all.

So if you don't like going out as often as your friends, then just decline when you don't feel like going out, and hang out with them when you do. If they are your friends they should get it. Explain to them, that you need to have your alone moments because of the nature of your personality.

XoXo

The tipping issue in America

 Okay, this is going to be for once a pretty short post and to the point

For the past couple of weeks I've been reading several 'articles' from Yahoo about tipping

First of all, let me set straight my opinion about tipping

It's not fucking mandatory

Is it??

I honestly have no idea, but if tipping is mandatory in the U.S. Then we really have to take a step back and realize we are in a fucking crisis for God's sake and should not be inventing excuses to give money away.

Although, I've never worked as a waitress, I have several friends who have and from their testimonies, it is a hard job.

But so what? You think I like dealing with smart-ass 10 year-olds all the time, or having to deal with angry parents who need to discipline their kids once in a while?

No, we all work our asses off just to make it through college. That's life.

But I never get a tip for any of it. I simply collect my check every two weeks. Waiters and waitresses do the same thing. They collect their money for what they worked for. It's not like they work for free and their only income is the tips they collect.

I mean, if you are a rich dude who wants to give a 20 dollar tip for a 30 dollar meal, then by all mean go for it. But America, you have to stop trying to make everyone feel like they have to leave a tip everytime they go out.

Tips are fucking retardation at its best. And the people who are always whining about it need to get it through their thick heads of theirs that we all work just as hard as them and rarely anyone in any other industry recieve any tips for their labor. So why in the hell should you feel entitled to always get a tip, huh?

And with that I'm going to make myself some food and make sure I tip myself really well because I'm an awesome waitress for myself ;)

Blacks and Asians couples: Do they exist?!

So.......I used to live in a very small Californian town so pretty much everything I ever saw was white people and some Mexicans (We are in Cali after all).

Here in College though I have friends from all over the world and I actually love it

I'm taking a introduction to Sociology class. We are focusing on American identity. One thing led to another and we began to talk about interacial couples here in America.

How they're perceived by others, what groups are more open to it. We all gave our point of view on the matter and some shared their experiences.


BUT I did notice that one of the couples that didn't even get touched on was

Blasian couples

Like I said before I come from a small town with very few minorities in it so it is no surprise I never saw such a couple.

Here in college though one of my very good friends is African American and my bestfriend/roomate is an exchange student from Taiwan. 

So I naturally ask them both (separately) if they knew of any Black/Asian couple. My friend 'S' from Taiwan told me she had never seen one but maybe it was because she had only been in the U.S. for two yrs. But my African American friend 'M' said she knew of one Filipino/Black couple from when she used to live in Florida.

But yup, so far I haven't really seen a Blasian couple myself.



I became more intrigued by this lack of connection between these two groups and so I went to the place we all go to get out questions answered..Google


I found a shitload of stuff on the matter. Some were old and some were fairly recent. Some were actual articles, but the most juicy stuff I found was in forums where actual people who belong to either one of those groups shared their ideas.


I knew that if it is hard to find a Blasian couple in LA then to find one in the rest of the country would be almost impossible.

The real articles I found were pretty standard. They focused on the history if immigration from both groups, blah blah blah. How in modern times both groups tend to stick to their own ethnic groups blah blah blah.

The most interesting graph I found was one of the most to least likely interracial couple you can find in the good old USA. The two most likely couples were Asian women/White men Latina women/White men Black men/White women. And then the least likely couple to encounter is 
Black women/Asian men. No wonder I haven't seen one Blasian couple as of today


Now the forums is where all the confrontation anger and frustration could be felt.


Some forums I encountered were on predominately African America/Black sites as well as forums or blogs of Asian American/Asians perspective.

Let's just say the word 'chink' and 'nigger' were being thrown around as if they were nothing.


The Asians argument:
They don't have anything in common with Blacks
Blacks tend to be criminals, sell drugs, go to jail(**sigh)
Black don't go to school
Blacks  are violent + rude + loud (**double sigh)
Blacks and Asian have history of not getting along (LA riots I guess)
Families would never accept a Black person
Asians don't like dark skin because it's not pretty
Black men have too much equipment down there and Asian women are too small for it to fit (LMFAO)
~~list goes on with more really racist and rude arguments



The Black argument:
Asians are racist
Asians are cheap and want to steal from the Black men (I'm quoting here)
Asians are nerds and stuck up
Asians love to kiss white people's ass so they try to put black people down for it
Asians have flat asses (No junk in their trunk :D)
Asians can not speak the Engrish
They can't dance (Oh hell no!)
~~Who would want to be with an Asian? that pretty much encompasses the rest of their arguments

So people were pretty much being dickheads from both sides of the fence.


Now I also found a lot of blogs in which most of the time the author was a Black girl saying with no shame they wanted an Asian man by their side. Some went even as far as to say that they didn't like Black men because they were (Insert Asian argument here).

This group of Black women who were making such revelations were 99% of the time fans of J-Pop, K-pop, Manga, Anime and so on (You can figure this out very easily by looking at their profiles)



Asians blogger that I found more open to the idea only went as far as to write 'Race shouldn't matter when dating' but none of the Asians bloggers I encountered went as far as to say 'Ugh I would totally date a Black person right now. They are so hot' Asian bloggers pretty much write they might be open to the idea if (And that seems to be a really big IF) they find the right person who happens to be Black but none of them seem willing to go out of their way to date Blacks (And I'm being nice by putting it this way)


On the other hand lots of Black people (specially women) really do seem to want to date Asians but they don't know how or are afraid of rejection.

I even found a blog written by a Korean man who writes about the Korean mind-set on things. He wrote in one of his blogs how he gets so many emails from girls asking on tips on how to date Korean men. And that most of the people who would disclose what ethnicity they belonged to were Black girls :O

So it does seem like they (Blacks, girls specially) do want to date Asians but they feel Asians don't want them :(

I don't think relations between Asian and Blacks are that rigid (at least from what I can see on campus) but they are just kind of segregated into their own little groups. I do see some Asians and Blacks being friends so I think it is only a matter of time before this couple becomes a least a little more popular. Blasian I mean...

But if you are black girl at least try to not seem and sound so desperate when you are making your love for Asian men so obvious online. Men won't take women seriously when women appear to be too easy and available. Let's keep it classy, ladies.

Working @ Express SUCKS: My experience

 I'm awake finishing some school homework when I suddenly felt the need for some good old
online shopping

One thing led to another and I ended up browsing through the EXPRESS online store.

Suddenly horrible memories of the two worst weeks of my life (Exaggeration at its best but I tend to be dramatic) came back flooding my mind



First of all. working in retail tends to suck everywhere. There are always rude customers, the pay is horrible, the expectations are usually too high for what you get and the hours you get tend to suck at best. All in all, not the best field to work at.

But Express takes the cake in my book.

I worked at Express for less than three weeks but I still remember a lot of things that made me  
want to run out of that place after one hour of work.



Everything began with me being broke. And as you know broke college students do not look pretty. I had been working at a shoe store until recently but it freaking closed down with the owner telling us about this one week before it actually happened

So there I was broke, sad and hungry. I of course began to apply everywhere and as things turned out I got one of my first calls from Express.

The woman who called me sounded extremely nice so I was actually excited about the possibility of working there.

I went to my first interview. The person interviewing us was actually the assistant manager and not the manager herself.


One word to describe her would be: Bitch


I seriously could smell the bitchiness emerging from her pores as she made her way to us from the backroom.

During the entire interview she kept reminding us how she was soooo harsh when it came to hiring new people and how she never kept people who wouldn't immediately giver results and how we needed to be available every single day that we were putting down on our applications (Even though she wouldn't give people more than 8 hours per week HA)

I of course kissed her ass and tried to be as outgoing as possible to get the job. Let's just say I was desperate at the time.

Me and one other guy from that group interview ended up getting hired.

So, there I was on my first day of work. Besides the usual nervousness I was feeling okay about the whole thing. I finally met the manager who turned out to be a total sweetheart.

But of course since I'm sooo lucky it turns out the manager wasn't fat as I had thought but 81/2 months pregnant. So she was taking her maternity leave for two months. And yup. The bitch was going to be in charge from then on.

Let's pretend the assistant manager (The b...) was named 'Rosy'.

Well Rosy acted like a totally neurotic, too-good-for-everyone over-confident beyotch the entire time she trained me.

She gave me tips on:
-How to push merchandize to customers until they wouldn't be able to say no.
-How to get customers to get credit cards they didn't actually need.
-How to kiss more ass.
-And on how to act like stalker and follow customers around the store asking them their names.

Yup. Overall the place was shit.

I suddenly remembered why I had never like shopping at Express.

One reason was because of the clothing. It's so dull. It's mostly for women over 35 who want to pretend they still got it. And the prices are just stupid for such mediocre clothing

Another reason was because of the workers (stalkers) working there.

Back then, I used to blame them and curse quietly at them because they just wouldn't let me breathe.

Sometimes one just wants to browse around. Look at prices. Walk around the store and just enjoy our time there.

But at Express, you can not do that!

You just can't.

If you work there you get am earpiece with a small microphone attached to it. Every worker around the gates Has To run to a customer and ask them for their name (WTH!), tell them we have oh so many good looking things in the store (LIE) and demand an answer as to where the fuck they are going so we can get them to spend some fucking dough in our establishment.

'Hi what's your name?' I had to ask this more than 100 times in less than 3 hours working there on my first day.

People gave me the stink eye (I probably would have done that to myself too) and walked away although some good Samaritans did stop to tell me their names (There's still nice people our there **tear)

After asking all these very important questions I would have to tell every other worker all the information I had gathered from our new victim. It went something like this

'This is _______. A lady named Cynthia just walked into our store. She says she is looking for a pair of pants to go have a hot date with a married man'

Yup

Ok. I never had someone tell me that many details but you get what I'm saying.

Imagine having to have to grab my little microphone and having to tell all the other workers what some innocent stranger wanted, who they were, what they were doing, etc. I felt like a pervert. Stalking my prey as soon as I saw them

And I had to hear these type of conversations about 5000 times from all the other workers as well. Because of course we all had to stalk people.

And so Rosy (remember the witch?) would always come to me and say things like:

Her: "You're okay so far but I just wish I could inject you with Red Bull to make you more hyper"
Me: Smile/nod ---- Actual thoughts: Okay psycho

Or another one of my favorites

Her: "You can't let anyone get away. You must make the sale. That is the one priority you must have"
Me: Sure, I'll try harder ---- Actual thoughts: ***Sigh / I really want to hit your face right now

So I had to work like that for two miserable weeks. Everytime I walked back to my car after work I would think to myself. What the hell is wrong with that place?

Seriously though, who made that kind of selling strategy?

From what I've gathered online and from my own experiences at other Express stores they are all on stalking-mode.

A lot of people (potential buyers) would just walk out of the store as fast as their feet could take them after being approached by three different workers wanting to know their name.

Poor them. Customers just wanted to have a nice day shopping around without being bugged but
No no no. We can't let any enjoyment happen there.

Just when I was going to pass out from rolling my eyes so much at all the other dummies working at that place some kind of powerful being took pity on me and helped me find another job less than a week later.

And so I got out of the damned place never to look back at it again.

To date I have worked in fours retail stores, a bookstore, as a babysitter, waitress but Express has given me the biggest heartache and headache in my entire working life (So far)

I hope the bitch Rosy gets the stick up her ass out so she can actually see what customers want and how to approach them in a less pushy way.


Nah. I just hope she fell on her butt at least once.

Bye Express. See you never