I Should Have...

Sidney J. Harris - Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

What do I have to regret? I'm young, I'm healthy, I have a family who loves me, friends too many to count on my fingers and toes, I'm free to be myself, and I don't have any enemies. What do I have to regret?

I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention:

• I never got to play Sharpay in my local theater production of "High School Musical" 3 years ago, but then at least I got the role of Ms. Darbus and sang "There's No Business Like Show Business". I had fun "confiscating cellphones" and "sending the whole class to detention".


• I haven't done any watercolor-painting for such a long time, but at least I've picked up photography. That doesn't mean I don't still have time to get back to watercolors; I even took out the DVDs that got me excited about painting to begin with. Maybe I'll take it up again. You never know.


• It's been about a year since we last put up a "Leslie and Kyle" video. Still, eleven episodes on YouTube is quite an accomplishment, if I do say so myself. Plus Bettina and Adam still help me sometimes with ideas for our next "big come-back".

Lingering on regrets for too long is unhealthy. That's my philosophy. Any time you waste thinking about stuff you should have done or could have done is time you can spend actually living your dreams, and replacing those regrets with fulfillments. Like Sidney J. Harris says, regret for things you've done will pass with time, regret for things you haven't done is harder to get over.

So take chances! Get messy! Make mistakes! These are the words Ms. Frizzle lives by.

(Points if you remember where you've heard that name before.)

What are You Reading?

Bertrand Russell - There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

How insightful! I love to read and tell everyone what I'm reading!

Right now I'm reading Robert Kiyosaki's latest book, "Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money". Robert Kiyosaki is most famous for his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" line of books, the first of which tells the story of how, as a nine-year-old boy growing up in Hawaii, he found a mentor in his best friends father, who taught him how to become rich and financially literate. Robert's real father was state superintendent for education, but he was the "poor dad" because he wasn't financially literate. Financial literacy is what you know about money, how to earn it, how to spend it, how to invest it, how to make it work for you rather than against you.

I've read many of Robert Kiyosaki's books, such as the original "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens", "Increase Your Financial I.Q.", and "Rich Woman" by his wife, Kim Kiyosaki. In this economy, learning more about money and how it works is the least you can do to become more financially literate. In his books, Robert says "Money is not the root of all evil; it is the ignorance of money that is the root of all evil"

And so, in this blog post, I have fulfilled both points in Bertrand Russel's quote. I'm enjoying Robert Kiyosaki's book, and I'm boasting about reading it. Ha!

Music is a Language Everyone Loves

John Erskine - "Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing."

This quote is so true. Absolutely everybody in the world loves music. There are probably as many different kinds and styles and flavors of music as there are people on this earth. As human beings, we seem hard-wired to listen to and appreciate music. Even people who can't carry a tune with a handle on it can enjoy the many virtues of music, and the educational, social, and psychological benefits that come with it.

Recently from the library I checked out a cool book called "Learn to Speak Music", which I heartily recommend to all my friends by virtue of it's awesome illustrations, and the spot-on advice on choosing and playing an instrument, putting and keeping a band together, how to write music and lyrics, getting and performing live gigs, and recording your very own songs.

Even more recently, I have my dad Benny to thank for investing in our newest 88 key instrument: a Yamaha Portable Grand DGX-520 piano! We found it on Craigslist and traveled all the way to Hollywood (Florida) to get it. When we got to the guy's house, he let me and Adam play with all the styles and beats stored in it before Benny paid for it. It is so cool! These past couple days I've been practicing "Fur Elise" (or "For Elise", whichever works best) with both hands, because the piano has this cool feature that I've always wanted, that plays the song and pauses until you play the notes that it shows on the little screen. Bettina and Adam have been practicing as well, and all three of us are getting better and better at it.

In conclusion, music is universal, it crosses language barriers, and everybody loves it because there is not a mean bone in it's body (not that music has a body; it's more of an abstract, intangible type thing, but still). In a world that is, at times, an unfriendly and somewhat scary place, isn't it nice that we can always hum our favorite tune and feel that little bit better all in the same minute?

New Blog Post Format

Hello everyone out there in blogworld! I've decided to change my blog format, the content that I feature on my little corner of the web. Instead of day-to-day blah-blah, I'm going to write posts based on my quote-of-the-day feed, which will expand on my opinions and views on the quotes (or quotees) in question.

This exercise is so I can get used to writing regularly in a blog again. I've realized how much it means to document and create material for posterity, so that I may look back on myself 5, 10, 20 years from now and see how weird and smart and funny I was "back then". Plus anyone who's on this ride with me (by reading this and other blog posts of mine) will get some entertainment and enjoyment out of my thoughts and insights and silly pictures I found on the internet.

(Points if you know who this guy is. He's one of my all-time favorite British actors.)

Happy Birthday to me! (and my twin)

Today has indeed been a very happy day. I got to spend it with my family: the best brother, sister, mom and dad a teenage girl could ever ever ask for. We all had so much fun together.


First thing in the morning my grandparents called Bettina and me up to wish us a happy birthday. That started the day off right. Then we were presented with 3 beautiful handmade cards each; 1 from each-other, 1 from Adam, and 1 from Benny/Shira (combination deal), and I sang Bettina an original song Benny helped me record that I wrote the words and music for, after Bettina showed me a poem she wrote for me on her poetry blog. Also my twin and I exchanged gifts: I got her a new hardcover notebook with flowers on it, and she got me a crossword book with over 350 puzzles! *Score!*

After all that we had time to relax a while and watch a little YouTube. Recently we found this channel that has clips from the 4th Animaniacs volume set, which Warner Brothers, as of 2010, are not planning to release to the public! We have never seen these episodes before! And they (the episodes) are absolutely hilarious! (The funniest ones are "The Sound of Warners" and anything with Skippy and Slappy Squirrel in it. Check the link to the channel here)

What made this day even more brilliant was the fact that it fell on the same day as Toastmasters, and even Benny and Shira joined us for today's meeting! Since we were all away in Boston for 'bout 3 weeks I missed our friends at our home Toastmasters club. Sure Adam, Bettina and I visited 6 other chapters up in Beantown, but it just wasn't the same. Unfortunately only about 4 members showed up to today's meeting, so it wasn't as festive as I would've hoped, but we still had a lot of fun. One of the members gave an awesome Icebreaker (a TM's first speech after joining), and it was so nice to catch-up with everybody after so long. I'm absolutely amazed that me and my sister have been members for almost a year now! My parents are certainly impressed with how confident we've grown with the help of this organization.

Anyway...enough plugging Toastmasters, (awesome though it may be) I've still got some birthday left to share.

For a late lunch, my family and I all went out to our favorite restaurant "Sweet Tomatoes", and towards the end of our meal, Shira got some of the workers there to sing "Happy Birthday" to us and present us with 2 chocolate brownies and some frozen yogurt. I was too full at that point for any brownies, but hey, it's really the thought that counts.


Afterwards Benny treated us to see a movie. At first we had a little trouble choosing what to see, but then we just decided on watching "Grown-Ups" with the all-star cast Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, and Rob Schnieder. Believe you me, if you've seen any bad reviews for this movie, don't believe one word! I haven't laughed during a movie so much since seeing "Toy Story 3"! Not that it's the same type of humor, but no matter. In my opinion, "Grown-Ups" is a hilarious movie for the whole family. At least my family and I had a great time.

To perfectly end a day like today would be a challenge, but I take pleasure in the fact that my sister got a birthday phone-call from a long-distance friend she really cares about. I told her she must've been on "cloud 19". Also there was a "Phineas and Ferb" marathon on TV while I wrote this post, so that's pretty sweet.

Thanks to everybody who took time out of their day to send birthday messages and well wishes to me and/or my sister today. It really means a lot. Goodnight Everybody!

Boston August/2010

This picture is a link to my Picassa album where I stored all my favorite pictures I took during our 3 week trip in Boston, Mass.

In that time I've gotten to love photography even more than I did before. I hope it shows in the pictures. Enjoy viewing them. ^_^