.Amani
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Day at Preston Bailey's Office~
Thursday was the day I finally went to see celebrity designer Preston Bailey. The whole night before I was freaking out, with "What am I going to wear???" "How am I going to do my hair???" "ohmahgaw what am I going to say??? What am I going to ask him???" "How do I keep myself from gawking and foaming at the mouth??? ShouldIBringOneOfHisBooksForHimToSignForMe???"
It's kind of like this... when you meet someone who has influenced and inspired you so much through their work, that gave you dreams on top of dreams on top of dreams, it's so hard to keep your composure. I have met actor/music celebrities before and they make you feel a certain way seeing their personalities through their music and influencing you emotionally, but with artistic stuff I think it's a bit different. Rather than seeing a hot stud with a velvet voice, I think with an artist is more like seeing a brain. A huge living brain, where there are colorful currents glowing throughout it in many different colors... (disco brain?)
It kind of gets all scientific because you want to know what they're thinking, what they can get from your personality from the moment you walk in. If you were mentally able to (read: not gawking and foaming at the mouth), you want to sort of put their skills to the test just to see how they're like. You want to soak up whatever they to give to you in hopes that you would leave their presence being twice as good as you went in there.
So I was very excited. In the morning I wore something super cute but warm (because I'm still on my consecration... so no super cutesy, ruffly outfit for me :c) and it was 95 degrees but since that was the only outfit that kind of displayed my personality, I went with it. Put on one of my cute wigs, and headed out the door...
When I was approaching the front door, I was just imagining what the studio must look like. Would it be some huge square showroom? How many employees would be there? How huge must their design center be? What Preston's office door must look like? The building must be one with a front lobby with a security guard, right?
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Sunday)
Anyways, I stayed up part of the night doing Crystal's hair, and then packing the remaining crap I had.
I slept in for a good minute, Avian and them ended up going back to the diner and bringing my back some breakfast as I finally got up to wash up and get ready. Then, I headed downstairs to the lobby where the rest of the church folks were chilling and waiting for our bus to arrive.
After checking out of the hotel, me and Avian dropped our stuff with the other sisters and ran off to visit the pier before the bus came.
That part of Norfolk that we stayed in was so relaxing... I was kind of sad that with everything going on, we weren't really able to explore. The pier had these nice chairs and sofas and whatnot, and hula hoops and other stuff to play with... the air smelled sweet from the grass and the seawater, nothing like most parts of New York City. It was also funny to me because I'm here waiting for these slow lights... but Norfolk drivers are SO relaxed when they drive, it seemed they were barely moving. Had it been our area, people would be having road rage and rushing for no reason.
There were these mermaids everywhere, it was a shame that I didn't bother to read the back story on them because I was only interested in food all the time. sigh
I got SO many pictures and vids of Avian LOL. I still need to put everything together but here was a few.
In front of the fountains. She managed to run through them without getting wet. I was not trying to risk it LOL
Not realizing it was the backside at first...
Natural swimmer...
Professional drown victim LOL. I was so off-balance because of my knee
This girl was hugging everything... umm...
It was difficult to take this picture lol. Since she was at the edge, she made it super wobbly and I was too afraid of falling to get near the center xD
Bench chillin~
Dijah on the bus being silly.
As we walked back, we noticed the bus pulling up to the hotel so we rushed to get our things and leave. This time the driver took the 'old road' and it took 9 HOURS for us to get back to the church in Brooklyn. It was pretty ridiculous, and I was TOO glad that one of the ministers were there to drive me and a few of us home. It actually took another 2 hours or so till I got home-- but I was so relaxed now that I was out of that cramped bus, and once everyone else was dropped off I was able to vent my frustrations a bit. It's good to have someone to listen to you... but it's never the same when it's not that someone you rely on for everything...
Overall, I'm sort of happy that I went, but at the same time I wish I didn't. It was nice going to a new place, but next time I'll make sure to have less disruptions...
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Saturday) part 2
Sad to say but the dinner wasn't really all that, either. It was definitely a waste of $45 for mediocre food and a bunch of talking I personally didn't pay attention to. LOL
Anyways, pics~
Obligatory photos of self camwhoring
Avian
The both of us together lol
Crystal and her mom dressed up :3
lol you can probably guess who is Mema in this crowd of special guests~
lol with Zerry
The booklets that were placed for us. Inside was the menu for the night, the bios of the founder of the convention, the president, honorees and the like, and the awards that were being given.
The not that great table decor... it looked extremely tacky imo.
Dijah camwhoring out of boredom and waiting for food.
What bothered me the most was the fact that they had the slices of cake sitting out along with the salad... I don't know if that's really norm but ??? In my mind, had people actually waited till the dinner was served and done with to eat their cake, most of them would've been beginning to stale by then. Maybe that's just me. I wouldn't spoil appetites by sitting cake out and letting it air out at the very beginning.
Then to top it off most of the waiters were not attentive at all, you had one girl with her sleeves rolled up and TATTOOS showing in the open. It was really ghetto. I ended up giving thema bad review on Yelp. I mean, maybe I was the only one who was absolutely baffled, especially by that one girl.... you're helping catering to a religious organization and you're flashing your tattoos out in the open like it's okay. kay bruh
Of course I didn't hesitate to eat my piece... and then after the main dish was served I was fat and ate whoever didn't want theirs. LOL
After the bad noms experience, I pretty much rushed upstairs to change. I was a huge derp for wearing heels when my knee was still feeling pretty blah, and my knee would've probably snapped in half. But fortunately by the next day my knee was actually feeling all better LOL. Didn't get it at all.
Ended up getting changed to go back to the pool, this time with just my black top to go with the bikini. Since I ate all that cake I was BLOATED as hell, like seriously, if I didn't look that pregnant before, I certainly did then. LOL
Dat ass
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Saturday)
Avian with Crystal
Despite us being in the metro area, this place was EXTREMELY cheap. I mean, freaking ridiculous. Pancakes for 4 dollars ridiculous. You'd neverrr see prices like that in NYC! I wish they had a location up here! The service was so good, too. I personally had a plate of pancakes with strawberries and pecans on top, with a side of hash browns and some spiced chai tea. All the food was sooo good and the total came out to only $10. Like are you kidding me? This place was a godsend
Apparently we had some sort of issue with our reservation... which was stupid. But we got it fixed quick when we got back to the hotel, and then we headed up to our shepherd mother's room. There, we chatted with Mother Jones for a bit where she told us the history of the COOLJC International Women's Convention, and her time as the president and the differences between then and now... back then, they used prayer as a way to choose their presidents and now it's by regular voting. Mother Jones was chosen through prayer to lead the convention, and throughout the years of her presidency she prayed through everything, and pretty much made the convention much better than it is today.
The views from Mother Jones' room
She told us that her first convention was in California, I think in L.A... and how the holy spirit had led her to stage a parade and how despite the odds it came to fruition... a huge crowd of women, hundreds I think she said, if not nearly a thousand, marching and singing hymns and whatnot. They had balloons in their hands, each with a small paper scripture on the inside, and at the end they let them all go, to bless whoever would end up catching one in the future. Apparently it was such a spectacular and spiritually-charged event...
She talked about how she had set up a Single's Night each year for youth to fellowship and stuff, how she had a lot of panels being run for youth, and for men too, and how active the convention was because of all the things that got set up. This year... none of that. The new president apparently stopped all those activities, and she never put anything to replace them.
When we talked about those things I felt jipped. LOL. I dunno. It seemed like I could've had such a good experience had all the things that were put there by Mother Jones had been kept. And it seemed that part of the convention was concentrated on the president's last year as well... Iono... after hearing Mother Jones talk, trying to imagine how it was back then, my vision of back then pretty much snuffed out any image I had from this year. The new president, who starts on next year's convention, said that she was going to bring back a lot of Mother Jones' stuff, so I'm pretty excited to see that.
When we were done talking (Mema had a panel to go to or something), I got dressed to go to the pool.
The views from the pool area
Maybe I should've done a nicer pose... lololo
YUP, I still wore my bikini LOL. If you read my past entries you already knew I wanted to wear it so bad! I had no one to impress here, barely anyone went to the pool, so I wore my VS bikini with my potbelly. Not a crap was given lololo. Though the other youth were joking on me, saying I looked pregnant. = w= whateverrrr bros
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Friday)
Despite the fact that I was limping around for half of the weekend, I enjoyed myself quite a bit down in Norfolk, VA. The pier area was gorgeous and certain areas had this beautiful view of the harbor... I wish I was able to wander around more and explore.
It was a verrrrry long 7+ hour bus ride down there. Luckily we were able to get sleep here and there in our cramped seats (seriously, barely adjustable) so it didn't seem as long.
Avian yearning for the ocean water... LOL
I wonder if we were near Virginia Beach?
The other youth people talking about Pig Latin and gibberish and other languages lol
I should've taken more pictures of our hotel room, but my friend Avian and I had this comfy King-size bed, with an extra rolling bed in one corner for our 3rd roomie Dijah. We were across from the Bank of America building but we still had a pretty nice view of the city. Dijah was pretty lucky for her little bed in the corner, it was right next to the window. I wish I woke up to the sun's warmth every morning... D:
The view from Dijah's side of the room
The other view from our room~
The sun was actually setting by the time we got there, so we had maybe two hours or so to wash up and relax before we headed to Friday night service. No pictures there... I hated my outfit LOL (wearing white with offwhite was such a huge peeve for me..)
It was pretty good. The music performances were GREAT, especially this saxophonist that performed, and then the speakers were good too. I really liked the first one, I forget her name but she had talked about women in power needing to stay humble and 'within the Spirit' through prayer and being hospitable than being concerned about their positions and whatnot. It really touched me and when we had a little prayer session I was in tears.
It's really hard to explain the emotions that are let loose during these moments, but it was a huge release for me. I think that it was one of the reasons why I was pretty chill when I got fired... I know that God has only the best in store for me as long as I try not to hold onto anything other than Him.
Afterwards there was another speaker, who spoke pretty well, but after the praying from before, I was too exhausted to really get into it.
Once service was out, I went around to find the pool area and looked around. One heated pool, 3 jacuzzis, one indoor and the other two outdoor... that were cold as hell :| Apparently there were plumbing issues the whole weekend for the lower floor or something... the jacuzzis were so cold.. it was a shame, because they seemed very intimate and relaxing (especially the outdoor ones, which were in their own little 'booths' with a door and all). We were roomed near some Southern guests who were in the pool area with us at some point, and on Sunday one of the guys said that they were just then fixing the jacuzzis.... right as we were checking out = A= what kind of shi--
The younger kids were already in the pool area at the time and were pretty much done, since the pool closed at 11 or so... so we went back up to our rooms, dressed down, and everyone pretty much bummed in our hotel room the whole night as we ordered pizza and whatnot.
Already, drama was brewing because of kids... It's funny when you travel with people to relax and have a good time, just for it to be ruined anyways by petty crap :/ Not even like yknow, serious dramu that's worth talking about. It was very irritating and there was of course tension in our room. I don't do very well with that.
Of course, it was only Friday and I was bound to get more irritated as the weekend went on...
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