Sleepless Night

Okay, well it's only 12:07 am (when I got online), but I'm still a bit worried I'll be super tired tomorrow due to lack of sleep. I climbed into bed over an hour ago, but couldn't fall asleep. My mind was wide awake and the most random things were keeping me awake. Like, if I were thinner, what kind of awesome Lolita like costume could I test out on Halloween (the day you can get away with wearing almost anything). See, random! Why am I thinking about Lolita costumes for Halloween? I'm not into that and Halloween is months away (although I LOVE Halloween).
Since I couldn't get to sleep or shut my mind off, I got up and turned on the computer. After looking at some cute Japanese Lolita costumes (to get it off my mind) I realized that I was hungry.
Ugh. I'm trying to be good and eat less, but the real reason I am hungry is because I was too lazy to go to the grocery store to get food. I just struggled today with whatever was in the apartment (almost nothing).
Anyways, I did find some small snacks to eat and decided to write a post since I'm up.
Hopefully now I'll be able to settle down for some sleep.

Charities and Donating

Okay.
I'm off work today so I'm doing random things all day. I'm washing clothes and getting ready the work week.
While checking my email, I got a request to sign a petition to help stop sex trafficking of children and young people from the body shop.
This is already a cause I am involved in and it is really horrible so I of course signed the petition.
Please visit and sign the petition and take other steps to help this cause. I also placed this on my facebook. If you can, do that as well. It is a very good cause.
I put a link in the word petition so you can just click that. If that doesn't work here is the site. http://petition.thebodyshop-usa.com/what-can.php
While on this topic I'll note the charity I donate to and support. It also involves human trafficking. Please visit shared hope International's website (www.sharedhope.org).
This cause is very important to me and not discussed enough so I thought I would mention them this morning.

In regards to charities, I think it is important to give back and donate time or money to a cause or many if you are able. It is important to take time and reflect on what we have and what others may go through in the world. I complain when I can't get the latest gadget or can't eat out as much as I want, but then I think of others suffering in the world and I then feel extremely grateful for what I have. I may talk about this topic later in a project I want to start.

Everybody is so busy with keeping up with the newest, biggest, and best things and living their lives that I think they forget sometimes about all the people around the world and that we should help in any way we can.

This very helpful site called Charity Navigator is a great site to help you find and evaluate charities. This is how I found out which charity I wanted to donate to. For now I'm on limited funds and can only donate to one charity, but I plan to add one in the near future.

I have already chosen the charity. Care. Please visit their site and help if you can. Click on Care or visit www.care.org. It is a good humanitarian organization.

Charity Navigator rates charities and tells you where their funds are going. This will help you make the best decision on where to donate.

If you can't donate money, why not your time to a cause?

Or you an donate your gently used clothes and items to your local salvation army or good will.

Do what you can. One small action at a time.

Ahh! Books! And Other Entertainment!

Let's see...
Some crazy storms last week knocked out the power in many places in Maryland. Luckily, our power came back, hehe, but my office's power was out Monday and Tuesday! Haha! 2 Free days at home.
Wednesday and Thursday were horrible. People are so crazy. Luckily I took of Friday so another day of rest.
The weekend started off boring and tiresome. My sister is on vacation in NC with one of our other sisters, so I'm home alone. Boring! Why didn't I go again? Hmm...
I finally snapped out of my boredom today with the help of some sugar.
A free Dunkin Donuts mocha swirl latte (Yum!) and a trip to the book store. Ah! Heaven...for me.
I picked up what seems to be a fantastic read. Something I've been looking for (not specifically, just the type of read).
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. A Historic read and bestseller rich in history and rawness. I sat down at Starbucks a bit later in the day to start this book. Even the introduction and first chapter are so raw. A skipped over piece of history.
Recently I read The Scent of Sake by Joyce Lebra (great read) and Life of Pi by Yann Martel (awesome read). I think I got this from my friend Laurel. Um, yeah, THANKS!!! So good. I recommend both. Great summer books. I'm trying to cram in a bunch of books this summer. Even though I work all year round and take classes, I still like the idea of summer reading that we used to do back in the day in grade school.
Ooh, and since my sister is on vacation and I have a lovely 4 day weekend (I took of Monday too - my mini vacation) I got all these movies on my sister's netflix.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring directed by Ki-duk Kim was a great movie. It's a simple, but thought provoking and spiritual film.
I also got The Legend of the Black Scorpion a.k.a. The Banquet(for some reason I've always loved Ziyi Zhang). I'll watch this tonight or tomorrow.
Side Note: If you have not seen House of Flying Daggers...please do. So good! Yup!
As you can see, I have an extreme interest into Asian culture and entertainment. Very interesting.