Happy New Year's from WNT!

Can you believe it? Another year has gone by! I'd have to say that 2008 was very busy, stressful, filled with both laughter and tears. Here's my "executive summary" of this year's happenings...

Happy 2008!

January, I rang in the new year with Kat and Israel, celebrating at The Loft in downtown San Jose. We were so indecisive that time, not settling on NYE plans, so we ended up there since there was no cover.

New Year's Day, I drove up to Watsonville to visit my friend Aya and her family at their Japanese cucumber farm and had some really good home cooked Japanese goodies...love them beans, Aya!

Partying, Travel, and Food!

February had a girls night out at Wild 94.9 Women's Only Event and learned how to bet on horses in Vegas.

Of course we checked out all the good eye candy at the Women's Only thing, but then realized the frustration with all these little 21 year olds pushing and shoving to get closer to the stage just to try to win some free stuff. GHETTO! That's why I don't go clubbing much.

In Vegas, Randall, Leong and I ate lots at the Bellagio and the Wynn. Lost some pounds walking around with these two. Randall and I tried out that roller coaster at New York, New York. Leong chickened out, but he did teach us how to bet on horses. No luck for me there. I also lost a lot of sleep listening to their snoring ensemble.

In March, me and the girls joined Jeanette's friends at Baker's Beach for a picnic. This beach is notorious for naked sun bathers and we glimpsed one guy in his birthday suit...((shiver)), but we did have fun playing with the sand and enjoying the sun and the waves.

April, we visited our old roomie, Enid in LA! We did a lot of touristy stuff, acting like picture whores taking tons of silly photos of ourselves. We caught a broadway show, Wicked! It was really good, I even cried at some points. We also spent some time at Enid's museum, The Getty Villa and we chowed down on some good Korean BBQ!

Modeling with Poe 'Ori 'Ori Pareo

In April, I had my first experience modeling with a professional photographer for my friend's pareo business, Poe 'Ori 'Ori Pareo, along with a couple of my hula sisters. This event really got me into the wonders of makeup, and celebrating being a woman.

Ringing in My Last Year in my 20's!

In June, I celebrated my 29th birthday with horse back riding at Garrod Farms in Saratoga. Every year for my birthday, I try to do something different and active. Last year was rock climbing and this year it was great being in the outdoors going horse back riding for the first time! The evening was a different story.

Sweat and Tears

July, I competed in my first big Tahitian dancing solo and group competition at San Jose Tahiti Fete with my dance troupe, Kawailehua. Solos took place at the Double Tree Hotel near the airport. I couldn't believe that I had been practicing all year for just this two minute solo. It went well. I didn't make it to finals, but it was a great experience being up there and freestyle dancing. I met some really cool people while waiting in line for my category.

Group competition took place at the Event Center at SJSU. With Kawailehua, it was an amazing journey leading up to this event from August 2007 with conditioning and tryouts, and sacrificing all my Sundays for these five hour practices perfecting our basic dance movements, memorizing the routine and positioning, learning how to dance from the heart and not purely focusing on the technical dance movements...it's still a work in progress. Kawailehua won 3rd place in O'tea, a first time for us!

Amongst all the commotion preparing for a whole year for this event, two days before competition, my family received word from the Philippines that my grandmother passed away. She came here to the states when I was little to take care of us. She was a tough lady, suffering from alzheimers in her last years.

It was a challenge mentally to focus on preparations for competition and packing for the trip back to the Philippines. In between work and last minute practices, the whole family coordinated getting the tickets setup, shopping, and filling up the balikbayan boxes with pasalubong (gifts) for the relatives.

We scheduled a late night flight out of SFO for the PI for the same day as group competition (10PM). My group was scheduled to perform at 2PM, so I thought that would be ample time to run home and head off to the airport. We told the relatives back home to extend the viewing and wait for us to arrive for the funeral.

The group competition line up was behind schedule an excrutiating six hours! 2PM came and went, along with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7PM! I kept my cool during those hours, but during that time, I was not a happy camper and it was very difficult to smile during the last few run throughs of the routine. The July heat didn't help either. I prayed to my grandma that I'd make the flight to see her and say good-bye.

We made it to the competition dance floor at 8PM on the dot. The whole routine was one hour. I was in a zone. Just for this one hour I would focus on the group and our performance. In between routines I called my mom and told her that it's almost done. She was screaming at me, "You better leave now or you're going to miss the funeral!!!" I was screaming at her, "I can't leave now! Just stop it, get Nene on the phone!" I calmed down and came to terms with missing the flight and told my sister that it's okay if I missed the funeral because I was able to see grandma a couple years ago before she passed.

Thank you, Lord for The Girls (Jeanette, Aya, Harms, Stacers). They were the only ones who came to support me at this important event and they are the ones that rushed my butt to SFO! After leaving the competition dance floor and waving good-bye to the judges, I rushed to gather my costumes, ran through downtown San Jose in my coconut bra with the girls to jump in Jeanette's car and head off to the airport. Jeanette made it to SFO in a record 30 minutes while I was in the back seat taking my cocos off and changing into plain clothes (not sure how the cocos would have looked in the security scanner).

My sister's boyfriend, Amir, was waiting for me at the gate with my passport and boarding pass. I still can't believe how my family checked me in earlier without me being present. I rushed through security and greeted my mom and sister with a deep breath and a smile, "I'm finally here." Our flight was delayed one hour anyway, wooo.

We were in the Philippines for 9 days, so we tried to make a vacation out of it too.

Some Relaxation, Work, and School

August was relaxing times. Kawailehua was already making preparations for next year's competition. I spoke to my Kumu about not doing group competition. I was already burnt out and I wanted to focus on finishing up my Master's degree and continue doing solo competitions. Work was always busy with reviews and travel. I finally got my promotion! And I competed at Kawailehua's annual Manahere solo dancing competition. I didn't place, but my dancing is improving.

Now tonight, I'm going to celebrate the forthcoming year with good friends and music. It's been an amazing year spending time with you all. Thank you! And let's look forward to what 2009 has in store for us!

~Lorace