Salsa Event

Went to a free salsa event with friends, one hour free lesson and performances to watch.

Below are some pics and videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMmIlzc4nSw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zATP9Qwq7sA

Writer's Block?

Have you ever feel that you don't know what to write and don't feel like writing for a little while? The motivation is gone and the desire to sit down and put your thoughts on paper are not there. This is how I feel recently and my mind is kind of on a lot of things. But I love blogging and will continue to do so, need to resolve my issues and be focus. Just a little bit of updates. Hopefully my mind will flourish with lots of thoughts later for writing.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! It's not a holiday I celebrate, but all the best to everyone who celebrates it.  Enjoy and have fun if you have a love one, if not hang out with friends or attend single's parties. Saw so many single's parties going on and also got invited to a few. But I'll skip for now and hang out with my girl friend. Also, Valentine's Day should not be any more special than any other day, treat your love ones well and love them as always, every day will be a sweet and loving day.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! 2013 is the year of the snake and I wish everyone all the best, with prosperity, good health, good fortune, happiness and new hope. Below is the god of wealth:

Things to Do Indoor Away from the Snow Storm

It's snowy and wet here in New York, stay safe everyone! Since it's not too safe to be out there, try to have fun indoor.  Below are some ideas for stuff to do:

1. Watch movies online, perfect for the snowy weather, drink a cup of tea, eat some snacks and enjoy
2. Catch up on assignments that's been put aside before
3. Read articles and do research on your favorite topics
4. Cook your favorite dishes
5. Catch up with friends over the Internet or on the phone
6. Clean your room, reorganize things and clear out unnecessary stuff
7. Read the news and stay up to date with it
8. Watch YouTube and catch up on your favorite dramas
9.  Play songs online, learn them and practice singing for Karaoke
10. Spend time with family, have conversations or play card games

25 Random Facts About Me

The Internet is awesome for sharing ideas and learning from each other. Saw the "25 random facts about me tag" and thought it's a fun idea to write.

So here it goes:

1. Mango is one of my favorite fruits
2. Lili is my nickname
3. Mangolily is a combo of fact 1 and 2 above, that's how I created my blog name
4. My friends and I can chat on the phone for more than 2 hours non stop
5. The longest Skype call was with one of my bffs, lasted for 7 hours
6. Chicken broccoli is one of my favorite Chinese take outs
7. I love to be surrounded by positive and inspirational people
8. The first Indian movie I watched was Bend It like Beckham in high school
9. I speak Mandarin, Cantonese fluently, learned Spanish and Japanese for a few years, wanted to relearn those two languages 
10. A lot of times, I am the event coordinator, organizer and planner for events among my friends
11. Karaoke is one of my favorite hobbies
12. Love writing and trying to get better at it
13. My favorite cartoons during childhood are Doraemon, Chibi Maruko Chan, Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, Sailor Moon and Crayon Shin Chan
14. What A Girl Wants, The Roman Holiday and Two Week Notice are some of my favorite movies
15. Open minded to different ideas, get along well with people from different backgrounds
16. Love learning about different cultures, languages and food
17. Passionate about technology and feel bored without my laptop
18. When the Internet was down one day, I read all day to kill time, so I love reading as well
19. Prefer a physical book over an electronic book
20. Christmas and Chinese New Year are my favorite holidays so far, but love all holidays
21. I can eat halal food every day
22. A Letter Writer inspires me to make a positive difference in the world everyday
23. Was a Mentor to a group of high school students for more than five years, I love to motivate others
24. People on YouTube and the Internet inspires me everyday
25. Blogging became one of my favorite hobbies, love writing from my heart

100 Things to Write About?

Recently stumbled upon some one's blog and he listed 100 things to write about. I am thinking of starting my 100 things to write about project. So far I can only think of 47 things, guess I'll compile my list over time. It's using a lot of brain cells to just sit and ponder :) Will share the list once I complete it, stay tune...

If you have any ideas to contribute to my "100 Things to Write About" project, please share. Thanks :)


This is the blog post that inspires me:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/100-blog-topics-i-hope-you-write/

Lucky Signs for the House

Since Chinese New Year is coming in a few days, thought I share a little bit about my holiday and culture.

Below are some typical good luck signs that we put in the house before the new year and it will remain on the wall for the rest of the year. Basically, all the signs have good meanings behind them. Also, tangerines are very important for this holiday; we usually put them in pairs on the tables of each room, hang them on the wall or near the window. It's crucial to get the ones with stems and green leafs, the greens signify fresh start along with the lucky fruit.

"Fu" means good fortune. Putting the symbol up side down means the arrival of luck.

Something to hang on the wall or the door, ancient Chinese coins attaching to lucky signs.

The golden boy and girl poster symbolizes good fortune and  you can see the money tree in the middle.

It's not Chinese New Year without tangerines.

Spring Couplets

Spring couplets are must have items for the Chinese New Year. Families would clean the house, take down  spring couplets from the past year and put up the new ones. It's usually taped to both sides of the door. They are usually words of blessings, good fortunes, prosperity, and new hopes. Traditionally, it is in calligraphy writings and the amount of words on both side of the door matches each other. On the door, you can put up words or pictures for good luck. But in the U.S, many families buy spring couplets to decorate the house. We don't really write them in calligraphy, similar to the picture below.

Prosperity Cake

Chinese New Year is coming up this weekend. My mom is already preparing for the holiday. Got a bunch of new year goodies and also started to make prosperity cakes, also known as "fa gao" in Chinese.  It's basically steamed sponge cake and it's sweet. Like the name suggested, the prosperity cake is a good luck symbol.  The muffin like prosperity cake has an open top similar to a flower, the more open the top is means more luck and good fortune.

Below are my mom's beautiful work :

The Letter Writer

The Letter Writer is a powerful and beautiful movie, touched my heart and  kind of emotional. The message of this movie is so positive and encouraging. It's a story of an elderly person and a teenage girl. She saw the world positively through the letter writer, he motivated her to be a better person and to find her key to happiness. Through ups and downs in her life, she made a better choice for herself and also made her mom proud.

Also love the song she performed at the end of the movie, "Angle Bones"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jhVMMFWtJ8&feature=share

Lyrics:

♪ You're a flower blooming in the new dawn. ♪
♪ The colors 'round the setting sun,
a candle in the dark. ♪
♪ And you're every sailor's
beacon on the shore. ♪
♪ You're every perfect metaphor. ♪
♪ There's a culminating
action of a song. ♪
♪ Sometimes there are miracles
and our hands do the job. ♪
♪ And for every action,
you move these things along. ♪
♪ Everything you do moves
these along. ♪
♪ Angels are hiding
in the motions of humans. ♪
♪ Angels are around to help us all. ♪
♪ We are angels hiding
in the bones of humans. ♪
♪ Helping all these miracles along. ♪
♪ There's a golden key
that opens any lock. ♪
♪ The path to get the thing you want
is never really blocked. ♪
♪ And you're every person's
escort to the door. ♪
♪ And every other person is yours. ♪
♪ Every other person is yours. ♪
♪ Angels are hiding
in the motions of humans. ♪
♪ Angels are around to help us all. ♪
♪ We are angels hiding
in the bones of humans. ♪
♪ Helping all these miracles along. ♪
♪ Angels are hiding
in the motions of humans. ♪
♪ Angels are around to help us all. ♪
♪ We are angels hiding
in the bones of humans. ♪
♪ Helping all these miracles along. ♪
♪ Along. ♪♪

My Other Social Network Pages

Just created my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/themangolily

You can also find me at:

https://twitter.com/TheMangolily

Five Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Just had sweet potato as a snack at 11pm, to make myself feel less guilty, I decided to write about the benefits of sweet potatoes.

1. Good source of fiber, help to promote healthy digestive system
2. Abundance of vitamin A and vitamin C
3. Lowers blood sugar and cholesterol
4. Help to prevent chronic inflammatory arthritis diseases  
5. Provides soothing to people with stomach ulcers

For more information, check out the link below. I find this article informative and helpful.

Health-benefits-of-sweet-potatoes

What is Your Passion?

What is your passion? This is a question that we get asked a lot. Some people are lucky to find what they like early in life and some are still looking for the answer. Life gets busy and sometimes it’s hard to slow down and take a moment to think about what we really want in life. This question always reminds me of a story from a professor about his career story.

When I was taking college courses as a high school student, one of the professors came to my class and talked about his career. A jolly old man that loves education and teaching. He switched career at the age of 40, realizing that he doesn't love what he was doing. Before becoming a professor, he was an experienced buyer and made lots of money. But he wasn't motivated and happy. Every day, he doesn't want to wake up for his job. It's not something he looks forward to in the morning. So he decided to do something about his life and went back to school. He discovered his love for teaching and sharing knowledge with others. I was captivated by his story and it's one that I'll remember forever. His story encouraged us to look for our passions and do what we really want to do. Life is short and we spend half of our time working, why not spend time doing something we love?

To find our passions, we need to know what does passion mean to us.

My definition of passion is:

• What makes you happy
• What motivates you
• What satisfies you
• What you would do for free
• What you enjoy doing so much that you don’t even realize time passes by

What is your definition of passion? Do you know what your passion is?
Take some time to think about it and look for it :)