Today is my baby brother Wes' birthday. His 21st Birthday! I can't believe it... especially since I literally remember the day he was born. Most of my high school friends still remember Wes as a toddler, they find pictures of him as an adult to be a rude wake-up call to how quickly time has passed. Mostly I just remember how cute and weird he was as a kid. Also, I very much enjoyed embarrassing him during his teenage years by loudly singing along to Spanish radio as I drove him around town. If only I had lived in SoCal to have even more time to badger him! Good times!

Happy Birthday Wes! Can't wait to see what the next 21 years brings... and oh yeah, ahem, drink responsibly! (See! I'm good at being embarrassing!)

Happy Gringo Day Arnold!

Yesterday was a big day, because Arnold became a citizen! I think somehow now, he has a fresh glow about him(See above picture). We took pictures so you could experience it all with us (except for the waiting in line part). Why does everything with Immigration involve so many lines?

At 7 am Arnold shook me awake shouting "Get up! It's gringo day". I dragged myself out of bed, dressed up as instructed in attire "appropriate to the dignity of the event" and drove downtown to Memorial Auditorium. What we didn't know is that there would 1550 people at the ceremony. It was like the U.N. Very cool!

After a two-hour processing time, the ceremony was... I kid you not. 10 minutes. Then it was another 30 minutes for everybody to get their Naturalization certificated on the way out. So Marlene and I went to all-American Starbucks to get some breakfast. That's where Arnold met us and showed off his new "gringo certificate". As you can see Marlene is the most patriotic person we know. Red, white and blue baby!
That night we met up some friends to have a celebratory dinner at Pooja's, an Indian Restaurant in West Sac.

Fun fact: AT the ceremony there were 150 people from India becoming citizens. There were 5 Colombians.

Justina and the Wong contingent brought a cake. Justina thoughtfully decorated the box. I especially liked the little blue star with 50 written in the middle. Johannes did point out that Arnold cannot actually become president because that position is restricted to natural-born citizens. Justina stated that it was her intention to have the cake decorated with a flag and the words "Herson for President" but it that it seemed it would be too complicated at the Chinese bakery.

After we stuffed ourselves with Naan and other Poojan delights everybody began quizzing Arnold on various U.S. History and constitution facts. Problematically, Arnold knew all the answers as he had to take a test recently for the Naturalization process. Next up Debi suggested we sing "Happy Gringo day to you" as Arnold opened the cake. Obviously, this was a most excellent idea. We sang "Happy Gringo Day" good and loud! I think the Pooja's staff thought we were having the weirdest birthday party.... ever. Also, does the cake seem radioactive to you?

A group shot.. minus the boys. The moral of this story? Become a citizen. You will be surrounded by beautiful women and rewarded with a certificate, an Indian feast, a radioactive Chinese bakery cake and the right to vote. Not bad, eh?

I don't think it's any big secret that I love public transportation. I LOVE IT! I love it like white people like sour cream. Sadly, Sacramento's public transport sucks, it's slow and inconvenient and did I mention it sucks?. This of course is in contrast to Portland, OR, the shiny city on a hill that I still dream about. When I think about Portland, ironically the clouds part and angels sing... but I digress, this post is supposed to be about China.

Must. Stay. Focused.

I will forever remember that China is the country that introduced me to the joy of trains with sleeper cars. This my friends is like magic. You pay $30 bucks get on a train, sleep all night in a comfortable bed. Wake up, eat some Jiffy in a squeeze tub and sesame crackers for breakfast and arrive at your location having saved money on both a flight and hotel night. It is SO WONDERFUL! Did I mention that I love public transportation like white people like sour cream?


PS. Debs sent me this awesome video explaining how to cheer in Chinese. Jia-yo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7uJ_ExULDw

I have to confess that we Arnold and I have been watching A LOT of Olympics. It's so addicting and has totally thrown off our schedule, we stay up till 2 am watching new sports everyday. In Atlanta I would come back from my conference to find Arnold still in bed at 11 am watching volley ball. And I blame all of this on China. The entire time we were in China was like a three week commercial for the Olympics. In fact, the whole time we were in China there was a ban on non-Olympic related advertising so every single advertisement we saw was for the Olympics. I think we were pretty much already brainwashed into reacting to everything Olympic like Pavlovian dogs even before we saw the kick-ass opening ceremonies. All, joking aside though, it helped us to understand that the Olympics is very important to many people in China, many of whom have made a lot of sacrifices to get their city ready for these events. Personally I think that when we look back, the Beijing Olympics will be seen as the marker of when China officially re-emerged as a dominant world power. It feels pretty cool to have been there right before these sure-to-be-historic games.

Most people go to LA to see "celebrities" but Arnold and I jet off to the lovely town of Atlanta. So far we're loving the friendly Southern hospitality and culture. On Wednesday we hung out at Centennial Olympic park and ran into an AWESOME free concert. If only, the free concerts in Sac were so jamming. I had to hold myself back from joining the people dancing on the lawn. But back to celebrities.... Arnold and I are staying at the Omni hotel adjacent to the CNN center, so we've been hanging out with Anerson Cooper and Larry King... or, er, cut-out's of them. Close enough, right?

But for me, the real excitement was what we did tonight. We went to Season 4 Top Chef Contestant Richard Blais' restaurnat. It was TV-come-true! I can't tell you how many nights Arnold and I sat around drooling over the Top Chef dishes and tonight we got to taste some. We had foie gras and sweet tea ice cream and confit! And I have to tell you, they did NOT disappoint... and whoa... speaking of not disappointing, as I type this we've been watching the women's gymnastics finals live! The anxiety has almost sent Arnold over the edge, he keeps poking me in excitement, but as I type.. Nastia Liukin has just won the Gymnastics Gold Medal and Shawn Johnson won the Silver! Jia-yo USA! I think Arnold might just feel a little bit prouder that next week he is going to become an American citizen... I mean obviously Anderson Cooper is excited about his impending citizenship ceremony

The map that Arnold is posing in front of is a map of the torch relay through China, but it's super-useful because it illustrates exactly how far we traveled across the country. For reference we started in Beijing which is in the North East side of the country and we traveled all the way to Kashgar which is the city tht Arnold is pointing at. That whole Northwestern state is called Xianjiang and is home to the Uighur people who are a Chinese minority. The Uighurs have their own language, culture, writing system and are predominately Muslim. Em had some Uighur students and was interested in learning more which is how we ended up taking a trek through the desert. There were times when this was a little rough. Generally I don't want to leave hot Sacramento for somewhere hotter, but in the end it was a great experience. We learned a lot about Islam and what it's like to be a minority in China. Plus, in Xianjiang there were camels.. and lamburger, but more on that later... Arnold and I are jetting off for a work trip to Atlanta so we'll be watching the Olympics from a hotel next to the Atlanta Olympic village! Peace out!

Did you see the Beijing Opening Ceremonies last night? They were off the hook! I feel sorry for London because there is no way they will top what China pulled out last night. Over and over we would gasp at how amazing the artistic portion of the opening ceremonies were. We had a party to show off our China pics and watch China's big night... also I wanted an excuse to eat lots of dumplings and wear my I Love China T-shirt. Jia-yo! Jia-yo! (That's right, I can only count to seven, but somehow I learned how to cheer in Mandarin while I was there)
Awwwwwwwww... just typing Jia-yo makes me very nostalgic for China and for the days where my days were filled with walking and eating dumplings and kebabs. I think Arnold misses China too because he seems to be googling "Spanish teacher jobs in China" an awful lot lately. It's really hard to explain how easy it was to grow attached to China. In the US you hear a lot about the Chinese governement and all the stuff they are always doing, but just as I would prefer not to be judged by my governement's actions, the Chinese can't be judged solely by their governement. People in China were very kind and accomodating to us, which I haven't found to be the case in other countries that I've visited. I feel that usually as an American tourist the initial reaction that I get from people is either annoyance, indiffierence or sometimes outright hositility, but in China it's very different... because the Chinese don't hate us... they hate the Japanese! Yay!

No, but seriously, after we were left to our own devices without Emily to navigate for us, we were helped by many, many Chinese people who gave us directions, helped us out and shared food with us. Another favorite activity was when people would shove their kids at us and then whack them upside the head until the kids started practicing English with us. "Hello! Where are you from? I'm learning English!" As the kids would sheepishly try out their phrases, their parents would stand behind them beaming with pride. Just one of the many reasons that I love China.... Jia-yo!

When I came back from China I had all these good intentions of faithfully blogging about all our experiences... but instead I've been jet lagged, traveling for work and watching Arnold rip apart the house with my parents... also we went to SF for possibly the best conference I've ever attended for work. Check out the view from our hotel room! Sweet! Arnold and I honeymooned in SF and for that, among many other reasons it will always hold a special place in my heart, but like a family member, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the city. I love everything that's availble. I hate how it's ridiculously expensive. I love the awesome weather. I hate that it's so unpredictable that you always end up dragging a coat around with you. I love the diversity. I hate that it takes almost 3 hours to get there despite being only 85 miles from Sac.... etc. etc. but back to my conference. The conference I went to was the National Latino Cancer Conference and if you work in cancer prevention I HIGHLY recommend attendance... which leads me to do something I usually don't do on my blog... talk about work. Mostly I didn't talk about work previously because I've found most of my previous jobs to be frustrating and I didn't think it wise to vent about them online. This isn't a slam on most of my previous jobs, work by it's nature is frustrating, but surprisingly I LOVE my new job, which is... Program Manager of Colorectal Cancer Program. I know? Six months I knew nothing about colorectal cancer, now I am busy embarrassing people by talking about it all the time... but here's the thing. Colorectal cancer is one of the only cancer's the preventable through the screening. If you go get a colonoscopy, it's not like a mammogram where they tell you:
1) Yes you have cancer
2) No you don't.

During a colonoscopy they'll say
1) You have cancer
2) You don't
3) You have polyps.

Polyps are little things that can become cancer but if you have them they'll just take them out and you WON'T GET CANCER. I cannot emphasize how sad it is that people die all the time of a cancer that is preventable through colonscopies. If everybody got screened for colorectal cancer at age 50, 85% of colorectal cancer would NEVER HAPPEN. NEVER! So here's the message for today, tell everybody you know about colorectal cancer screening and make sure the people you love get screened as soon as they hit 50. GAD and my Mom have already done their duty, but that doesn't mean I don't spend time badgering them into talking to their friends about colorectal cancer screening. Alright it's time to go to work... can't sit around blogging all day....colorectal cancer doesn't prevent itself peeps!

Remember how I told you that I was designing a trade show booth? Here it is! I think they did a great job putting everything together, especially considering that at the last minute the space was doubled from a 10 X 10 space to a 10 X 20 space which required lots of last minute scrambling. I'm especially psyched that my design concept for displaying the cards totally worked! But I'm more excited because I got to do some work for a great company Banyan Press. They create micro-businesses in developing countries, providing people with jobs and financial opportunity. Check out their great product line at www.banyanpress.com