Stole these instagram photos from Kimberly & Janice. :P Our team is called Muddy Matadors! Would love to do another fun 5K run!

Excuse my awkward pose
I got to see my old friend from high school! Here she dressed up as Princess Jasmine. It was so nice to see her and her sister. Both of them made their own costumes and did their makeups and I thought that was awesome! And that was my outfit for the night. Felt very… Bollywood-ish, ha! This girl loves chocolate. LOVES chocolate. That she fought against another bidder and won a chocolate cake for $65. That was entertaining! Hahaha!

It was a nice busy break away from school. Now, I have to prepare for next semester and I’m just excited! I’m halfway done! Eek! Time goes so fast! And now to study for another midterm! Never thought I’ll enjoy school so much. I’m a lot more active this semester and it’s letting me get used to a whole new change. I like that. :) What’s your new change this month?!

This past Saturday, the 27th, was National Coffee Day and its time to celebrate this super awesome drink that we all love so much! And so, in honor of this day, a bunch of big name coffee retailers (and some small ones) are giving away free or discounted coffee. Those that top the list are McDonalds (free), Krispy Kreme (free) and Dunkin Donuts (discounted). While these places do not necessarily serve artisan coffee, it is coffee nonetheless and it sure does the job. So try get your hands on these babies while they last!

Also, apart from the free coffee, the week of National Coffee Day is also geared toward raising awareness for fair trade, shade grown, locally sourced, small batch roasting and all that good stuff so check your local coffee shops bulletin boards or specials for some do-good-with-your-coffee info. You can also check out Ethical Coffee for some coffee 101.

Happy Monday! – C.

This calls for a celebration! Over this weekend I reached 1,000 blog views and it just made my day. Coming into the blogosphere about a month and a half ago, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve always read blogs but never thought for once to start blogging myself. I came across the idea of blogging when I got my hands on a special early release copy of Blog, Inc. – the newest book of a friend and seasoned blogger, Joy D. Cho over at ohjoy! At first I was a little hesitant. I didn’t really know if I had a unique enough voice for people to be interested enough to read what I had to say – let alone have the time to blog. I work 45+ plus hours in between 2 jobs and in the process of reinventing my apartment and figuring out my next step in the world of coffee. But I gave it a shot anyway and lately I find myself blogging every chance I get. It’s become such a part of my daily routine and now I wonder why I haven’t done it any sooner. Since I’ve started the blog, I’ve met some pretty incredible people that inspire me everyday. My list of daily blog reads has also grown tremendously and I’m still discovering new blogs I’m interested in everyday. And so I want to thank all of you who have read and stopped by my blog. Never in a million years did I think I’d label myself a blogger, but everything happens for a reason and this makes me feel like I’m one step closer to opening my coffee shop.

Thank you,

- Celestine

Image via Terttulla

Happy 9th Birthday Kikiman!

A few friends here…

Another Opti cake there…

Add some family later on with another birthday cake, and you get one happy kid!

My favorite part of this weekend was getting together with my sister and her amazing kids… we don’t do this often enough Kathie!

was pretty fun especially for me, someone who is not a big fan of Las Vegas. You would think, “Oh, now that she’s 21, she can play and have fun more!” Ha, still not my thing. I guess gambling or partying all night long isn’t my scene. Anyways! So we left on Thursday and stayed till Tuesday and there were about thirteen of us. Yes, thirteen! But it was fun!

photobombed by Kimb & Leo, ha!

So we basically spend those days, gambling a bit (I have 0 net worth of loss. Hmm. I guess that’s kind of good thing? As long it didn’t go under! Haha!), celebrated Stacey’s birthday, meeting people at DeafExpo, clubbing with girls, having some late night (or early morning, it was about 4 in the morning) sundae, walking around the strip, gondola rides, finding out my pearl color, and of course, foods. :)

waiting for Fred’s poker tournament. He was so close though!

Affogato. Espresso + gelato = delicious!

A must!

Expensive, but why not!

Hubert Keller’s Burger Bar. Self-explanatory

Instead of singing, we chatted for a bit then at the end she sang for us. Amazing voice!

decided to find me a pearl!

Frozen hot chocolate french toasts straight from Serendipity3.

Jeff & I ended the day with some of the delicious handmade ice cream! It’s lemon ice cream with lychees, strawberries, and mangoes! And the lady who served it to us was super sweet and funny! Perfect way to leave Las Vegas!

Yes, we ate out a lot! We pretty much spend the nights together to clubbing or during the days to visit casinos, some shows like illusion, a magic show, and for good part we pretty much went on our own. I’m thankful for a good group of friends for good times! Thankful for the drivers especially! Driving all the way from Calif or even just to drop us off at a club! So it was good time but I didn’t get to ride on one of the highest roller coasters, bummer! So do I miss Las Vegas? Not really. What I really miss from it? The foods. Just delicious! :)

After the trip, I gave myself a break and somehow got immersed into more thinking about what I truly want to do. You know, you can never really know every single details of what you really want to do. With your life, with your future, with your major, with your blog, too! Everything. It’s a good “soul-searching,” if you like to call that.

(this is a great example of why sometimes I just want to buy expensive markers!)

But I do have instagram! (Follow me if you like! @unoriginalkai) So here are what I’ve been up to…

Last Saturday, my mom and I had opportunity to babysit Winnie! We pretty much had fun and were tired from trying to keep her entertained! She’s so hyper! And on top of that, my brother facetime with us and that definitely got her excited! Haha! (And I “upgraded” my red Toms!)

Ah yes, I was trying to figure out what to get for him from Kentucky. Then I decided to grab a shirt from Sean Forbes (He’s a hard of hearing musician, check him out!) and it was a song called “Def Deaf Girls.” So I changed it a bit for him. Hee!

Then, it was his birthday on the 18th! This guy is now 21! Made him a special cake! It’s supposed to be swimming pool with jello (infused with vodka, ha) in the middle and graham bears are in their life saver swimming around. For his birthday, we spent it at OC Fair with friends. As you can see, it was a nice weather! But traffic and parking were horrible, we decided to park outside and it was only couple blocks away. Not bad! And free parking! Before we left, there were 6 of us trying to tackle the jumbo size Mexican funnel cake on the bottom left photo. It’s BIG! I believe it was 6 regular sized of Mexican funnel cakes in one! It’s delicious though! Crispy outside and soft inside. It’s like funnel cake and churro combined! Not a bad ending!
If you’re wondering what’s in the bottom right photo, it’s 4 hypnotized boys giving our interpreter belly dancing at a hypnotizing show, hahaha. Definitely entertaining!

I think sometimes it’s nice to get away for a bit. Like don’t touch your laptop for 4 days! Or be able to sit and watch movie with friends, eat your heart out, and pretty much anything before you start your oh so busy life!

When I came to visit Jeff, saw this, took a picture, and realized how much I do miss LA when I was away in Kentucky. :)

Elizabeth from Don’t Take My Books Away!  So shoot us an email, honey, with your address! 

Thanks to everyone who commented and stumbled into our little rabbit hole to talk about books with us for this past year! 

Here’s to many more! 

First off, Kimberly!

I look horrible with sweat and excessive makeup for on-stage purpose but this girl dealt with it! :) I’m so thankful for Kimberly. She’s my chaperone and has helped me so much for the past two weeks and my trip to becoming Ms. Deaf CSUN and Ms. Deaf California! We have some pretty funny stories ourselves during the journey and had some amazing memories together! She helped painted my nails (’cause when it comes to second coat, I’ll mess it up!) and putting make-up that’s worthy to be on stage and working through zippers and zippers of my dresses! Not even to mention pinning on and off sashes during specific times of the days. Oh even better yet, she brings me lunches! Hahaha! The day she got sick, she still helps me any way possible! x) She made sure I practiced and prepared and assured that I will be fine. :) She’s just that awesome! THANK YOU!

Then we got Amanda, my state director (see from my previous post) and she helped me so much during the paper works and snacks for two hungry Asian girls! Hahaha and she worked with Kimberly on fixing my hair in attempt to make me look like I’m actually 21! She was a former Ms. Deaf California herself so it’s reassuring that she have some experiences with what I’m going through and super nice to know I can always ask for help! (Even though she seems to sleep very late every night, she’ll get ready to help with anything!)

Dan, president of CAD (previous post!), is probably the coolest president of any organizations I’ve met! Hahaha! He was state director before Amanda took his position and he ranked up! So he do have experience in the process as well! He actually got up 7 in the morning so I could practice my platform with him and tweaked it a bit. Very fun to be with! Both Amanda and Dan not only helped me but allowed me to freely be me and enjoy the conference!

Of course, can’t forget my family! They’ve been behind me 100 percent all the way! :) My brother just know what to say to make me happy (even though, it may not be always appropriate! hahah) and my dad is the silent one but always up for any texts or emails! :) Then my mother, good grief, we worked so hard on my dress. When I say “we” I mean 90% of the time, it’s my mom! She basically helped me find business outfits, hemmed all my pants (’cause I just have to be 5′ 1″), and fixed my dress to where it is now! We spent the last night staying up till 4 in the morning to hem and pack and all that! Truly thankful!

Then the good part goes out to boyfriend (for dealing with my madness and worries and staying up late for me!), roommates (for taking care of apartment situations when I’m gone! Hahaha), families from all over (all the way to Canada, Belgium, and China, super cool to know I got support around the globe!), friends (cheering me on from the start! Heck, I even got to see my friends at the conference!), and new friends I made over the two weeks!

Top 6 or not, this is for you guys!

Kimb and I actually flew a day earlier so we could rest up and get ready for first day! Well, our second flight (we flew from Santa Ana, Calif to Dallas, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky) we had 3 hours delay so by the time we got to Louisville, it was already midnight. So much for having rest! Hahaha. We spent our first week at Kentucky School for Deaf in Danville and it was our retreat week. The second week was the preliminaries and final. It has been pretty amazing experience just to make new friendships with not just 13 other ladies but so many more people I meet along the way. And there were some familiar faces like Taylor from Academic Bowl and Margo Cienik, my high school teacher. It was that awesome! :) Then of course, we were given opportunity to visit Louisville Slugger Museum, Churchill Down Derby horse track, and perform National Anthem at Slugger Field. Definitely great two weeks!

For a photoshoot fun!

Mickey Mantle’s bat at

Signing “Thank You” for a delicious lunch!

The Slugger Field! (but we left early ’cause it was so hot and sticky!)

Belle of Louisville steamboat ride for 4th of July! :)

& the fantastic chaperones! We couldn’t do it without them!

Churchill Down horse track! That day was the hottest ever, so hot they cancelled the horse race for the sake of the horses!

Getting ready for show time!

Get FABULOUS!

Miss Deaf Maryland/Miss Deaf America 2012-2014! Congratulations!

Dan Girard, CAD president! Thanks for the great support!

Amanda, my state director! Thank you for everything!

My family couldn’t come so instead I considered them as my family! My CSUN family! (the boys were on college bowl team too! Missing 3 people, ha) So glad that Kimb and I were not the only ones there :) Of course, we’re missing few people like Taylor from Washington/RIT, Allen from Montana/SWCID, and few other people. But knowing that they’re supporting is just great!

So these are just some photos Kimb took and I will search for more photos from other people! So it’s been a crazy 2 weeks! Also I have a facebook page up! So search “Ms. Deaf California Ambassador 2011-2013″ and check more photos from there!

The day I flew back home, my immune system decided it was done for the day (or more ha!) so I got sick with itchy throat and runny nose! But it’s all good! My posting should be a lot more frequent now the competition is done! How was your week so far?! :)

Ok so anytime someone mentions an anniversary I hear this song in my head:

but that’s rather husband/wife like and this is a book blog not a marriage so how about a birthday song instead? 

Like many o’ blogs we are still up and coming but we’ve come a long way in the last year and hope to grow even more in the years to come.  We wanted to do an ARC giveaway but are so far behind on our reading that we can’t give up the ARCs we have right now (don’t worry I’m sure we will give them away soon enough or at least be willing to share them ) That being said, we are still doing a giveaway.  :) 

So when we started thinking what we could giveaway we thought, “why not stuff we are currently obsessed with?” So keeping that in mind, we decided to do not one, not two, but THREE giveaways.  Of course two of the three are already a done deal.  Not only do we want to thank everyone who follows us or even just stumbles upon us every now and then but we wanted to make sure the people we consider friends were rewarded as well. 

First up, our top commenter on the blog (I’ve checked our stats, it’s legit) Tee over @ YA Crush!!!  For being our book blogging soul sister, helping us get started, sharing books, and being one of our biggest supporters.  Hope you like these because I almost don’t want to send them to you:

As you all know we both have a bit of an obsession with owls (Harry Potter anyone?).  FYI, these are NOT salt and pepper shakers (DIXIE!), just cute owls to use as bookends but I had to do a close up so you didn’t see the craziness that is my kitchen.  

Second, our honorable mention.  Candice over @ The Grown Up YA is out second biggest commenter so why not include her?  If you haven’t checked out her blog she is a blogging ninja and is constantly posting something HILARIOUS.  I don’t know how she finds the time.  I hope you enjoy these: 

And finally.  To our free for all giveaway.   Who isn’t obsessed with the ridiculousness of the weather right now?  It’s so hot I wish I could just spend the rest of the summer living on the beach (Dixie: under an umbrella, of course, with Will Herondale fanning me…ahem…sorry, back to the giveaway). In honor of this thought we’ve got several items to get beach ready, a couple of books (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Attachments  by Rainbow Rowell) to be read while you are there, a notepad to keep notes for a possible review (or for phone numbers of half-naked hotties), and a bag to carry them all in!

Tote, Girls Scout cookie flavored chapstick, nail polish, mani/pedi essentials, notebook/pen

To enter to win it’s simple. Comment below with the answer to this question: What type of books do you prefer reading? YA or Contemporary Romance…I think we know the answer to that one, but let’s see what you guys think.  We will randomly pick a name next Friday (07/13) and send out an email to the winner.  US Residents only, GOOD LUCK and thanks for stopping by!!!!

Emma is such a sweet, kind and compassionate girl. She loves Jesus and has such a servant’s heart. She is SO funny – I love her sense of humor! Emma excels in every subject at school, but she is especially good at spelling and math. She is diligent, responsible and truthful.She’s a great friend – always reaching out to those who don’t have someone to play with – and she is a great big sister. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter! I love you, Emma, and pray you have a wonderful year being nine years old. You make being a Mom so fun and rewarding!

Last evening, my friends and I walked to the campus but we didn’t know there will be interpreters provided. So we asked a volunteer to tell us where to go. Well in the midway, the police officer kicked us out of the route! We ended up taking much more longer way and we got blocked. People were literally fighting over to get seats near the graduates. We didn’t get our first I’m not bagging down on the way they did their operations but I do wish they understand that we need to get to the front so we can have interpreters right away instead of holding us half hour later! But anyways, the important thing is we got to see our friend graduate!

Congratulations, LEO! :)
& yes, that is a big head of him, haha. A couple friends had an idea so Kimb and I went to Fedex to print a huge picture of his head and we all signed on the back. It was awesome! He became popular instantly, all thanks to this fantastic poster!

It’s that big!

And everyone had so much fun with it, haha.
There were other friends who were graduating and I congratulate you guys as well! Now I have one more graduation to attend! :)

By the way did any of you guys see the annular solar eclipse last Sunday? Pretty cool!

Last Friday, Ji and I had a “date” to visit Santa Monica College then we got to explore a bit.

Then I had a fun event to attend to, Deaf Prom! Ha, talk about flashback to high school! Will have to find pictures somewhere!

On Saturday, my brother invited me over for BBQ at his place. I guess, most of the attention was on Winnie. She’s so cute!

Thanks, Janice for the balloon bouquet! Both my mom and Winnie love it!

Finally, today on Mother’s Day we all went hiking!

An hour hike to the waterfall and yes, that’s my brother sliding down! It was a nice day and perfect weather, too! Of course, in the midst of everything I was studying for finals. It’s kind of why everything seems so fast-paced. But now I really got to focus on finals and I’ll get back to you as soon I’m done! :)

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! :) Mama, I love you!! :)

Good luck with finals! For the high schoolers, good luck with AP exams!
And for the rest of you, have a great week!!

Earth Day started as an idea of a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (yay WI) by the name of Gaylord Nelson.  After seeing the devastation of the 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara and student antiwar efforts he decided to have an environmental teach-in which became Earth Day, 1970.  Over 20 million people took part and from there it became an annual event.  How great is that: one man with a big idea, resulting in a tradition that is 42 years old today.  I hope you’re celebrating.

I am convinced that all we need to do to bring an overwhelming insistence of the new generation that we stem the tide of environmental disaster is to present the facts clearly and dramatically.  — Gaylord Nelson

I LIKE HOW GOOGLE EFFICIENTLY CHANGES THE OUTLOOK OF THEIR LOGO EVERYTIME THERE`S SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE.

* Please visit this site for the Earth day today : http://www.earthday.org/

This is not what I just been up to, I went to Cici’s Cafe with friends on Saturday and had humongous, yet delicious french toasts! And I was able to be part of Sign N’ Run event at my campus. So it’s definitely a lot going on! In addition to that, last week I had midterm and papers to do so I’m glad to have made it through!

If you don’t hear me back soon this week, do check out some blogs I’ve been treading through on my LinkToThem page! :)