Talent!

I finally created an Etsy account, because I wanted to buy my scarf from Heidi's shop and be able to write her a review! (It was to help her out, but by the time I got to it, she already had 3 other good reviews! Way to go Heidi!)

Upon exploring the website further, not only did I find other amazing things that I'm having a hard time convincing I can live without, but so many of my other friends have their own shops on there!

Angie's store has cute Christmas cards, Jennifer's store has some super cute knitted hats, and Nick and Hanna's store has cute knitted gifts! Here are two things that I should probably proceed to purchase quickly:

Cute hat from Jennifer's store!


Adorable hair accessory from Hanna and Nick's store!

On a side note, I love how you can know a lot about people but you still don't know everything. I love being able to discover new amazing things about my friends! Now go check out these talented people!!

A Loyal Dog

I recently watched the movie Hachi: A Dog's Tale with my family. It's Christmas break, so I'm watching movies :)

Hachi was filmed in 2009 starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen. I was a little reluctant to want to watch this movie. My family came back from their day with a stack of movies, none looked very promising to me. Across the cover of this one said the immortal words "Based on a True Story," so it was obviously my mother's first choice.

I was pleasantly surprised, because I actually enjoyed the movie. Here was a movie with a fairly simple plot about a dog, that was done well (much better than that ridiculous Marley and Me). I was ready to give this movie a thumbs up until the end of the film, when the words on the screen said that the true story was actually about a Japanese professor at a Japanese train station. Pfft.

If you know much about be, then you know that I am currently obsessed with all things Asian, most of all Japan. So to find out that this movie could have actually been in a Japanese setting really put me out! To think I was excited about the one Japanese character in the film, and the discussion of the Japanese history of the dog!

If you don't want me to ruin the movie for you by totally revealing the plot, please, read no further. The real story of the dog Hachi started when he was born in Odate, Japan, in the Akita prefecture in November of 1923. He was sold to Professor Hidesaburo Ueno, an agricultural engineer professor at the University of Tokyo.

From what information I can gather between the film, the ever reliable Wikipedia, and other random websites, is that Hachi would walk with his master to Shibuya station everyday, go home, then at the end of the day come back to the station to pick him up. After two years of owning the dog, one day the professor boarded the train and then never came back. Hachiko waited for him to return, in fact, this dog came back to the station every day for nine years after his master died, every day until he died.

The loyalty of this dog is what makes this story so famous, famous in Japan. According to what I've read, there was more than one newspaper article printed up about the dog while he was alive, praising him for his loyalty. After the dog's death their was a film made in Japan in 1987 (Hachiko Monogatari). A bronze statue has been placed at the Shibuya station and is one of the most popular meeting places in Japan.

Every year in April there is a ceremony at this statue for this dog, where lots of dog lovers from all over Japan come to participate. There are also two other statues of this dog in Japan, one in Odate where he was born and one in front of the Akita Dog Museum. (Akita is the breed of dog that Hachi was, also Japanese).

This movie did lead me to a neat bit of history about Japan, so I am happy about that. I have one more thing to add to my list of places to visit when I go to Japan!(Maybe I could meet someone at Hachi's statue!)

Here is the statue of Hachi:


This post makes me think of two things: (1)this seems to me like the second Japanese movie remake that Richard Gere is a part of, and (2) we have an American dog hero statue... Balto. Perhaps I'll post about it in the future.

Jingle Bell Run

Today two of my sisters participated in the Jingle Bell Run down in Eugene. I didn't get to go watch them run, but they did very well in their races!

Devynn took first in her age group for the 5k, and Kambria was the first female in for the 8k. Here's a picture of their cool fun run shirts and their prizes!




I ran this race, probably two years ago, and it was a fun race. If I remember right, there's a nature reserve/park you run through which makes it better than just a typical road run. It's also cool to see how far the event has come along. The year I did it, they gave each runner tiny little bells to fasten on them wherever. This year, they had bigger bells and two different types of shirts for the runners. As you can see in the picture, first place got "crowned" with a wire fir tree branch, and some cool prizes like sparking cider and a bucket of candy.

All of fall term I had been meaning to keep up with my running, but I never even got started. Part of the problem is when you are so busy with everything else (like school & your career) you push running aside to get in more time to do homework. I also value my sleep, so running gets further down the priority list.

My plan is to run this winter break so it will be easier to keep up during winter term. If I keep it up all year I'll plan on doing this race next year, I'm sure it will be even better!

Until then, I'll be keeping an eye on goodrace.com for some upcoming races :)

Hope Open

So I officially got everything finished up with the Hope Open this last week, I guess that means I should post about how it went.

If you don't know, The Hope Open is a disc golf tournament that I directed on October 30th with all funds raised benefiting the American Cancer Society. The event had a good turn out, I was pretty worried about making ends meet the week before when there wasn't even half as many signed up as ended up showing up to the event.

This was my second year running this event, and every year I get to witness how amazing people can be in support of a good cause. One person was telling me how important this event was to them, her dad had gone through cancer and treatment and was deemed clear of it this year, but it was a hard process to go through. She assumed that I must have been touched by this disease in some dramatic way to be putting on this event.

The truth is, I am blessed to be healthy and have a healthy family. My grandpa last year went through cancer treatment, but is doing very well now. The people in my life that are affected with cancer have been at a distance from me, so I haven't had to feel the pain that so many people have. I am thankful for that, because I know that day may come sooner than I hope. I love being able to put this simple, fun event on and have people bring the meaning into it.

There was a couple of guys who came down to play, and were so excited to play that they wore pink, brought pink cupcakes for everyone, and bottles of water! It was wonderful seeing them get so excited about raising money for this event. A brother and sister donated a pair of Blazer tickets to the raffle, which was wonderful! The raffle this year was astonishing with how much stuff people and businesses donated.

Honor Signs is the other place where I get to find out more about the people in the disc golf community. These Honor Signs are the signs at each tee that are dedicated to people in our lives who have been touched by cancer. People who couldn't make the event donated signs, and people who were at the event donated signs. I think that when we view the little circle of our life, we think that cancer has touched us in a big way. When you walk through the disc golf course and see all of these signs, it is plain to see that so many lives have been touched.

The Hope Open ended up raising over $2,000 for the American Cancer Society! It was a great event and I look forward to doing it again next year!

Here are some lovely photos that Jennifer M was gracious enough to come and take! They turned out wonderful!













I have some left over shirts, discs, and towels if you are interested in contributing! All the money from this will go towards next year's event :)




(The other benefit of running this event is coming up with a creative logo design!)

My Christmas List

Isn't it interesting that it get to be the holiday season, the time when we are supposed to be thankful for the family and friends we have, that it is still all about us? I mean, there is really no getting away from it in American Culture. I notice it even more after studying retail strategies for my final tomorrow....

Another reason I can't help but to think about me, is my parents requested a Christmas list that I can email them. They want to stay in and do all of their Christmas shopping online. I have to say, it's been pretty fun taking a break and seeing what sort of things I want online.

But really, if my family all went together and bought me a MacBook Pro, with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, I would be one happy camper. Probably more than just a happy camper.

But here are some fun things I found while online window shopping :)
From Onitsuka Tiger (Asics):


From Tokidoki & Asics:


From Nike:



And then of course, an endless list of music available on YesAsia! I guess an iTunes gift card would work too :)

Now to back to figuring out what to get everyone else!

Red Dress Fashion Show

The 2nd Annual World AIDS Day Red Dress Fashion Show took place November 30th. There were lots of designers and lots of amazing designs! It was a lot of fun to see how amazing my designer friends are!

One of my favorite dresses of the show was Ashley Bate's dress:


I've heard comments from people that they want this dress as their wedding dress in white or ivory. It's absolutely stunning, and you can really see all the time and effort she put into it.

My dress turned out pretty well, but my original design had more to it and I just ran out of time. My sister Kambria was wonderful enough to model for me again this year. She did a good job! (She did her hair and make up, AMAZING!)


And here is a photo of Ashley, Missy, and I and our beautiful dresses! I love fashion shows!

The Design world at Oregon State

A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending an informational session by Oregon State's Design and Human Environment (the department I belong to) and the Engineering department presented to Alumni from Nike and Columbia Sportswear.

I got to hear about just how awesome Engineering is at Oregon State. I've always heard that they have an excellent program, but it was pretty cool to find out just how amazing it is.

The coolest part to me, was to find out how awesome the DHE department is. Currently, the faculty of DHE are trying to combine with graphic design and create the College of Design within the university. Not only that, but there is a tremendous amount of research that goes on in DHE that I had no idea about. It makes me feel proud to be attending Oregon State.

The other great part about this event, was that I got to show off my amazing shoe dress and talk a little about that and about other projects I've done at OSU, all in front of people from Nike and Columbia. I was happy to add some more business cards to my contact stack :)

Since I haven't posted a picture of my shoe dress on this blog before, here's a pic:


It's always fun to have other people get excited about something you've made. It's really exciting that I made this dress for a show last February and I still get to show it off, thanks to the great people at Oregon State taking care of their students.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article about what OSU's design department is doing, you should check it out!