... The Personal Website of a California Latina

I was going through random things that I have recorded on my Nokia N95 and came across this video footage I recorded at UCLA. This is why I love having the N95 by the way, because you never know when you’re going to want to record something and so it’s just convenient being able to record right from your phone because I always have it with me anyways!

So yea, I was walking to class and saw that they had set up t-shirts for the Clothesline Project so I went ahead and recorded it. The Clothesline project is where victims, or friends/relatives of victims give a public testimony about any kind of abuse by creating a t-shirt. All the t-shirts are then hung up for all to read. It was all so moving, reading all of the shirts there, especially the white shirts which represent someone who was murdered or committed suicide because of abuse. It sucks when I uploaded the video to the website the quality isn’t as good as the original on my computer… so you could barely read what is on the shirts… but the first white shirt is for a female named Michelle and it says “God doesn’t take good people away, he keeps you safe”…

PS - I am very aware that my wordpress is messed up. I’m having a hard time working with wordpress/blog template codes. I have a love-hate relationship with wordpress, and right now I just don’t want to deal with it!

Hi! So, I upgraded my wordpress and have been trying to fix it sooo please excuse the mess! I know some images and things are off, I’ll fix it later. It was hard enough for me dealing with putting my layout on wordpress!

I’m taking a break right now and was tagged by Mike at Ordinary Folk and I thought this would be a good distraction for me (to not think about coding wordpress :-|)

• WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes, my aunt. My cousin has exactly the same name, too lol.
• WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Couple days ago Stress..
• DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? No, I especially hate my signature! I keep trying to change it because I don’t like how it looks lol.
• WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Ham works for me, too.
• DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Heck no.
• IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes, because I’m an awesome friend, haha. No seriously though I am a good listener
• DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Yep.
• DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.
• WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Hmm, maybe. Not something I’m really itchin’ to do right now though lol.
• WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Frosted Flakes
• DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Haha… usually no! I untie them when I have to put them back on.
  
• DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Yes.
• WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Vanilla (so simple, I know.)
• WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Eyes, I love eyes, I look at eyes first.
• RED OR PINK? Red
• WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I think I’m short, I want to at least be 5′5″.. but noooo! Stupid genetics.
• WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My family in Mexico.
• WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Black sweats, no shoes or socks (I’m comfy)
• WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? A pork chop and Mac N Cheese! (It was actually my first time making Mac N Cheese too! I know that sounds so lame but we seriously only eat mexican / puertorican food and all red meat in this house)
• WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Beyonce “Woman Like Me”
• IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Dark Dark Dark Dark Dark Dark Red
• FAVORITE SMELLS? Anything my Mom is cooking
• WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My boyfriend
• FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Baseball, basketball, football, boxing.
• HAIR COLOR[S]? Mine? Dyed light brownish lol
  
• EYE COLOR? Light brown/hazel
• DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yea, clear contacts, practically BLIND lol jk
• FAVORITE FOOD? Mexican / Puerto Rican food
• SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Depends on my mood.
• LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Fantastic4 (Silver Surfer)
• WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? White
• SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer… I need a tan right now.
• HUGS OR KISSES? BOTH!
• FAVORITE DESSERT? German Chocolate Cake… mmmm
• MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Nobody
  
• LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Nobody
• WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I’m on vacation, how dare you ask that question!
• WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Golden Retriever puppies
• WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Didn’t watch TV last night
• FAVORITE SOUND[S]? The ocean, I love the beach, it relaxes me.
• ROLLING STONES OR THE BEATLES? The Rolling Beatles.
• WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Illinois
• DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Don’t think so.
• WHERE WERE YOU BORN? East LA (seriously)
• WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Nobody!

I was browsing videos and came across some new information as well as an old tip from a friend! The first video I saw is a model talking about Paula Dorf’s Lip Exfoliator. Paula Dorf is one of New York’s most sought after make up artists. Anyways, this is the model, Yara…

I personally haven’t tried this product, and you’ll see why below. But I also never thought about lip exfoliators… never even considered them. So who knows, I might try it out sometime when I have extra money to waste (lol). And then more recently I saw this video with model Ariel… now THIS is what I do..

Much more simple (and less expensive), right? I think so. My cousin’s girlfriend gave me that tip years ago, and she was the only person who ever gave me that tip so it was pretty cool seeing that a Ford model does the same thing! Hehehe. Oh, and incase you’re wondering what Ariel was referring to at the beginning of the video about the lotion, here it is…

I need to try that one out, too. What am I trying right now? LISTERINE WHITENING® Pre-Brush Rinse and this week I plan on buying Mr. Clean AutoDry CarWash, which in case you haven’t heard makes it easier to wash your car because you don’t have to dry it!

So far I’m liking the Listerine Whitening Pre-Brush rinse, the only thing is sometimes I forget to use it and don’t realize it until I’m brushing my teeth already But my Mom has been sticking to it and I already see the difference, this product might be a keeper!

FINALLY! Finally, finally. Finally finished my final final exam yesterday.

So now, there is just so much I want to do that I haven’t really had the time to do previously! And I have all of this free time and don’t know where to start.

The first thing I did after my last final exam was sleep (of course), I was still pretty tired afterwards (still am) so I hopped on the net to visit sites recommended to me by others earlier.

I have to figure out how to add this WordPress-Ready Contact Form that my buddy Mike over at ThingsByMike.com recommended to me after I asked him what he uses to prevent all of those annoying spam comments. So I’ll be doing that soon…

Then I checked out and joined Virb.com, by recommendation of my friend mboogie on Twitter. Haven’t fully explored the site yet but it’s an online community site like MySpace where you can blog, add pictures and videos. I’ve joined other sites before in hopes that it’d be better if not just as good as MySpace, but there was always one thing that these other sites didn’t provide as well as MySpace and that was giving the user the complete freedom to customize their profile. And if you’ve seen my MySpace page, you’d know that I’d want nothing less then being able to customize your profile.

So, supposedly Virb lets you do that. Customize, that is. I’ll be looking into that later because I want to redo my MySpace layout this summer (it’s one of the many things on my To-Do list).

Oh and one thing I immediately found very cool about Virb is they can let you integrate your Flickr photos on your Virb page! I liked that.

Obviously haven’t done much on Virb because I was just all over the net yesterday, but here’s my plain o’ Virb page, if you’re on there, feel free to add me virb.com/anothermaria .

While browsing yesterday I also came across a GREAT video site! VIDDLER.COM! I checked it out because I saw a video someone posted and surprisingly it wasn’t a YouTube video =oO The video loaded fast, and the player looked different and I was curious so I checked the site out. For Viddler, not only can you add keywords/tags for your video in general, but you can add keywords on specific parts of your video. And not only that, users can COMMENT on certain parts of your video! And you see the comment pop up at that particular moment under the video while the video is playing. I thought that was sweeeeet! Oh, and if you’ve got a webcam, you can record your webcam footage directly from your webcam to Viddler.com. You don’t even have to install anything!

Needless to say, I HAD to sign up for Viddler as well *coughs* www.viddler.com/explore/AnotherMaria *ahem* Even though I have no videos up.

Which brings me to my video dilemma. YouTube vs. Revver vs. MySpace vs. Viddler for uploading videos. All of these sites have something other sites don’t have.

• YouTube - most popular video site, greatest exposure and number of views.
• Revver - money (lol), cool widgets and flash/quicktime options.
• MySpace - hellooo, it’s MySpace. Wider ranged audience I guess, good exposure.
• Viddler - super fast loading video, people can’t steal videos, greatest community interaction / great video features that other sites don’t offer.

Should I just use them all? Hmmm…

PS. A big thank you to those with the kind emails / messages / comments from my previous blog. Truly appreciated..

So sorry for the lack of updates, things have been really stressful / hectic here.

A loved one has been in and out of the hospital for a while and when things seem to be getting better… it doesn’t… and just gets worse. Another surgery tomorrow, hope it goes well.

Not to mention I’m in the  midst of Finals. So I try to calm my nerves down to study, and I need to finish this huge paper, and prepare for an oral presentation on Thursday.

So please bare with me, at least until finals is over at the end of next week. Thanks.. (sorry for the gloomy post)