Okay, shhhhhhh...in an attempt to be creative I made my first print! It's actually a Christmas present for boss (cuz we're also good friends), so once I send it to him and he gets it and opens it, I'll post it here so all can view it in its glorious gloriousness (thinking in a couple of weeks). So stay tuned!!!

God I love Irish music. Check them out, from the same peeps that brought you Celtic Woman!

Via Angry Asian Man, The Univsity of Maryland Asian American Studies Program and OCA just released A Portrait of Chinese Americans.

I'm pulling the text straight from the website here:

AMONG THE STUDIES FINDINGS:

Fastest Growing Immigrant Group: Chinese Americans represent the fastest growing immigrant group in the nation (up 30 percent between 2000 and 2006, the most recent figures).

Largest Asian Ethnic Group: Chinese Americans represent the largest ethnic group among Asian Americans (about 25 percent).

Higher Education Clustering: Chinese Americans cluster in a small number of colleges and universities (about 85 percent of Chinese Americans who go to college cluster at only three percent of all higher education institutions).

High Levels of Higher Education: Twice as many Chinese American adults have college degrees than the general population.

Lacking High School Education: Conversely, recently arrived Chinese Americans represent the largest number of U.S. adults without the equivalent of a high school education.

Occupations: Chinese Americans are more heavily represented in professional and managerial occupations than the general population (53 percent vs. 34 percent).

Industries: Chinese Americans cluster in industries associated with health care, food services, manufacturing and professional/scientific fields.

Pay Equity: Chinese American men earn less in salaries than majority Whites for the same level of education.

Geographic Clustering: 60 percent of all Chinese Americans live in a handful of cities, beginning with New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, as well as the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the Boston metro area and the Dallas metro area.

Suburban Migration: In the past 20 years, Chinese Americans have settled increasingly away from traditional ethnic enclaves characterized as Chinatowns. Many of the more affluent Chinese Americans now reside in suburban communities commonly known as "ethnoburbs" or mixed "Asiatowns."

Citizenship: Three out of four Chinese Americans are U.S. citizens and exhibit very high rates of naturalization. However, this is less true among the recent immigrants who have been slower to seek citizenship.

Multiethnic/Multiracial: One in ten Chinese Americans are multiethnic and/or multiracial.

Divorce: Once they marry, Chinese Americans tend to stay married - with a divorce rate less than half that of the general population (4.4 percent vs. 10 percent).

RECOMMENDATION

"This study marks the progress of Chinese Americans entering the mainstream fabric of American life as well as the challenges that remain," Shinagawa says. "It surely demonstrates the need to stop treating Chinese Americans as a monolithic group. Different segments of the population have very different needs. 'One size fits all' simply won't work. We hope recognition of this diversity will help serve as a guide for policy makers so that their decisions will improve the lives of all Chinese Americans and Asian Americans."

Pretty interesting stuff.

Well Happy Veterans Day to everyone and it is also Hubby and my 13th wedding anniversary. Extremely low key...the present I bought for him won't be delivered till the 18th. We went out to a nice dinner with the kids and when we came back, I sat down to blog while Hubby and the kids played a round of "Zombie Hunters".



Forgive the bad picture quality, it was taken w/ the cell phone cam in very crappy lighting (I photoshopped it so it doesn't look as bad as before). Apparently I am the zombie in this scenario.

Have been extremely fixated with 50's ephemera lately, so have been buying up a lot of 50's cookbooks and such. Not that I plan to cook any of this stuff...apparently the head chef of the Better Home & Gardens Kitchens publishing these recipe books back in 1958 was named Susan (a lot of the dishes are named after Susan)...oh btw did I mention my real name is Susan LOL...the dishes are a bit on the heavy side...



Seriously, thats like several layers of white bread with various creamed meats in each layer and then a very heavy cream cheese frosting smothered over the entire shebang.

Here's a better picture of the cover I snagged off of etsy:



That picture is SOOOOO 50's. Most of you are probably too young to remember this stuff. :p

But one reason I dig this stuff so much is because the drawings are so cool...for example...



That pic is from this book, and I borrowed the image from LP, who are way more talented then I at scanning (although my computer is being upgraded and won't be available for a few more days).

All of this I am very nostalgic about probably because it reminds me of my paternal grandparents' apartment in San Francisco. They lived on O'Farrell Street near Japantown. My dad, mom and me and my sister would go up there to visit about 8-10x a year. Yei Yei (paternal grandfather in Chinese) lost his first wife and son in the war against the Japanese way back in the day. He eventually remarried (to my current paternal grandmother) and emigrated to America. He graduated from Columbia University and did very well working in management at Wells Fargo.

He kept stacks and stacks of Reader's Digests and Life Magazines from the 1940's and 1950's (I should know I was bored when I visited there as a youngun and I read them all). He and my grandmother had since moved to their separate rooms and Yei Yei's room was filled with vinyl records from floor to ceiling. He had a very small path from the door to the bed, every other inch of space was taken up by the records. Their furniture was very 60's and every morning when I visited we would have oatmeal (with heaping spoonfuls of sugar), eggs, toast and coffee (I didn't drink the coffee).

It was a completely different experience for me. My grandparents were quite urbane and clearly acclimated with the Americanized way of life (Yei Yei often made trips to various bookshops around the city). Spending time with them was like catching a glimpse of how "real Americans" lived (zomg oatmeal for breakfast every morning!!! and coffee!!!).

My father's side of the family had a lot of issues that even now I shake my head at...but I think can really appreciate those times I spent as a child in that 6th floor apartment on O'Farrell St in San Francisco.

Interesting side note...the I still have the dining room table that my grandparents used (they used to cover it with a vinyl checked tablecloth). It's very kitschy and formica-ish, but as my dad can't bear to throw anything away, Mom refuses to have it because she hates it, my sister is too fussy to have such an ancient object in her house, so I was the inheritor of the table when I got married (and apparently I don't have it in me to throw it away either). We've since gotten a nicer dinner table so the old table is now in the living room for the kids' computer desk. The formica coffee table is in the garage and the formica student desk with the annoying banging drawer has been assigned to son (who doesn't know any better and think it's just a cool desk (it was made back long time ago from the wood of a real captured pirate ship......)....

Every time Dad comes down to visit, he makes his way around the house to inspect aforementioned table, desk and coffee table and make sure they haven't been thrown away. He'll nod his head and knock on the dining room table with his fist...

"Good stuff," he mutters, "Built to last."

--Honestly, I don't think I've encountered a more narcissistic bunch then graphics designers as a whole. What do I define my profession as? A designer? Graphic designer? Communication designer? Commercial artist? Art director? Creative director? The debate rages on (via). Remind myself to read that in-depth later. Yes, I realize I am part of that narcissistic bunch.

I still have trouble believing that yesterday happened. After dinner I hopped on the computer and kept switching back (yay for multiple tabs) between cnn.com and msnbc.com to track which states would go red or blue. Msnbc.com seemed to be a bit bolder and called states for Obama and McCain a bit sooner then cnn did. By the time Obama won OH, it was pretty much game over though I kept refreshing the map until it was officially called.

What made last night really interesting though is that Hubby is Republican and I am a Democrat and though we both swear the other's party is the epitome of evil, we're both quite moderate and share many of the same views. Both Hubby and I try to refrain from bashing the opposite party outright in front of the kids (though Hubby did make comments about the evil Democrats on various issues in the past and I had to tell him to desist). The kids' school held their own election for Obama and McCain and both kids voted for McCain. I asked them both why they did.

Daughter: Because he's got a cute puffy face.
Son: Cuz the old guy will pay the bills.

So when Obama won, Daughter was a bit crestfallen and asked why. I, giving Hubby the look of you better bloody agree with me, said, "Both were good men, P, but in the end more people wanted Obama to win. Daddy and I want you to get to know the facts on your own about an issue or candidate and make up your own mind."

"Yeah Mom, but you are Obama Mamma and Daddy is McCain Reigns huh!" was her cheeky reply.

*Le sigh

Oh and BTW best electoral map graphic of them all!

It's rainy here today, but there is a sense of excitement in the air it seems. By tonight American history will be made: America's first African-American president, or America's oldest evah President and first female VP. As an extra incentive to vote, you can get a free cup of coffee from Starbucks, a free donut from Krispy Kreme AND a free ice cream cup from Ben&Jerry's if you do.

I got no less then 10 pre-recorded calls yesterday from various groups urging me to vote this way or that. I let the answering machine get them all, it was that annoying.

Anyways, we'll see what happens, but I got a good feeling about this election. :)

--Just found a cool new blog called Metrodad, about an Asian dude who is a dad of a youngun and lives in the city (hence the name Metrodad...man I'm smartz). He blogs about being a Dad mostly, and came up with the Best Halloween Costume Evah for his kid...

UNDERAGE CHINESE OLYMPIC GYMNAST



Read the full story here.

--Halloween was a bit of a misty-eyed time for me, as I reflect on how fast Daughter (aged 10) is growing up so fast. This year she wanted to go trick-or-treating with her friends (not her ole parents), so she went with two other girls, Julianna and Lark and Lark's Mom who nicely volunteered to chaperon the younguns. Son who is 7, is still my baby boy who will love his Mommy forever young enough to want to trick or treat with his parents went with Hubby (I stayed home and passed out candy). Son was Ironman and Daughter was Elizabeth Swann (pirate costume), so they were very excited. I was kind of amazed at the number of people who turned out for that night to trick or treat. Several neighbors actually went all out and decorated their houses with Hollywood style special effects and haunted houses and the like. So, it was nice evening of hanging out and being silly.

--Hubby and my 13th wedding anniversary is coming up, so he was nice enough to buy me a purse from Zappos.



Okay, actually I bought the purse myself and informed Hubby that he would be paying for it. :)

Anyways, hope everyone had a good Happy Halloween. :)

I've mentioned before that I have started to do more design work for work, which is great but because I work for a technology company, I've been hesitant to post work related projects because well of proprietary issues blah blah blah, but here's a project I can talk about! Was that a run on sentence or not? I was asked to create a caution sticker, and here it is...



Okay, everyone golfclap now.