Another Ideal Reader?

I couldn't decide on who I wanted to write to for this post, so I decided to do both :)

Dear Shailene Woodley,

You are such an incredible human being, and I look up to you immensely. I have watched many of your interviews, and everything you say is so inspiring. I don't know you personally but you come across as such a kind, down to Earth person. I love your simple sense of style, and how you care so much for our planet.

I am not an actress myself, but I believe that you are so talented. Your performance in all the films I have seen you in are amazing. Your talks about self love and self respect are so inspiring, and I truly look up to you. You are such an awesome person, and of course actress, and I aspire to meet you someday.

You performance in films is amazing but from watching your interviews, you seem like such a down to Earth person. Now, that term can be used as someone who is kind, caring, and open to everyone but you are both that and earthy. I thought it was incredible that you didn't even have you own cell phone and only one for work. It's 2016, and most teens are so consumed in their electronics that people can't even seem to have a normal conversation. I admire your love for nature, and have been doing my best to not be on my phone as much. I personally love film and making videos which usually ends up in a lot of screen time, but I am working at being more present. These days, the amount of screen time teens use is scary. Many times I walk into coffee shops, or restaurants and you don't even see two people having a conversation anymore. They will usually just sit on their phones in silence. I admit, I have and am one of those people but if I am with someone I always make sure to turn off my phone so that I can be present with that person.

                                                                                                      Image Courtesy: cosmopolitan
I watched your Ellen interview when it came out, and I was very impressed. You can fit all of your belongs in one single carry on suit case. To have the mentality of not being attached to very few materialistic items was incredible. I am not the type of person who is super attached to the things I own and go through my clothes, books, and other random stuff multiple times a year. But I don't know how I could fit everything I ever wanted in one carry on suitcase!

Last but not least, I wanted to thank you. Thank you for being such a role model. I am sure you have millions of fans, and I am one in that huge number, but I cannot express my gratitude and respect for you.

If you were to read my blog it would be the biggest honor, and would honestly be speechless. I admire your lifestyle, and am ecstatic for what projects you have in the future.

Thanks again,
~ Marea

My Ideal Reader?

Dear Neil Burger,

You are such a talented director, and your movie Divergent is amazing. I have so much respect for you some day hope to create a film as incredible as yours. Divergent has been my favorite books series for quite some time now, and when I watched this movie I was amazed. I admit, as much as I loved the Insurgent movie, I preferred the style of the Divergent one. I noticed that you did not direct the second film and could see a difference. I have seen the Divergent movie so many times, and I aspire to create a film like that some day. One that keeps people on the edge of their seat, waiting to see what happens next.

I love film, and you inspire me to take my time and put my best effort into my videos.  Not to mention you got to work with an incredibly talented group of actors, and the cast seemed to get along so well. Working on a movie set seems like such an incredible experience, and hope that some day I can create my own films.

Even though the film Divergent, came out in 2014 I still continue to watch it and it will always be my favorite. Being able to work on a set like the one you worked on, looked like such an incredible experience.                                    
                                                                                    Image Courtesy of: Popsugar   
                                                                           
I know that you, Neil Burger, will probably not see this blog post but if you were to read these words I would be so honored. Your work inspires me, and I cannot wait to learn more about the creative process that goes into making films. If I could meet you, I would love to learn more about the process. Although, I do make Youtube videos, it is minimal and is much different than working on a movie set. Your works of art are amazing, and I hope to see more of your works in the near future.

Thank you for inspiring me to continue to do my best always, your film Divergent is truly amazing.

~ Marea

2015 ⇨ 2016

2015 was definitely a challenging year for me personally, but it also had its highlights.

In this post I am mostly going to be talking about the highlights because I would much rather focus on the good things.

To start, I got to be reunited with my childhood friends in California 3 times last year. It was so awesome, and I grew a lot closer to them than ever before. Once in the summer, once for camping, and the 3rd time was Tahoe. All epic trips that I will not forgot.

Another highlight was growing close to one of my best friends, Alyssa. (I cringe typing her real name, she knows why;) In the past I never truly felt like I had one single person that I could always go to, I've had a number of friends I have been really close to but it was never just one person. Last year, and the year before, was the year that I felt like I had one really close friend. I am constantly laughing with Alyssa, we know all of each others secrets, and know everything about each other. We love and obsess over all the same things, I am so grateful to have someone like her in my life. Thank you so much jokey, JB, yoon, george, sam, fred, jeebs, jeebsie, jeebsieyoon, joke biffle, best friend. Yes I am aware we have lots of names hahaha!

                                          Photo taken by my cameras self timer!

Even though we hit a few rough patches, I am so thankful for one of my best friends, Ariel. We have been friends for 10 years now, and we are still friends! We share a lot of the same passions and interests which I am so grateful for because when we get together we always have the best times. Thank you for being the peanut butter to my jelly, and sticking with me. I really appreciate it Little Monster <3

2015 was also the year I went to my first concert. I got to see Walk the Moon with my close friends, Mikelle. Although, I admit it was stressful with so many people it was totally worth the fun! We had such good laughs, and walk the moon was awesome live.

I also felt like I made a lot of good friends last year, and I am grateful for every single one. You know who you are :-) I feel like I have a really good group of friends, and I am so glad I have a nice group of people in my life I can count on. Thank you :))

2015 was the year I discovered my love for language. 2015 was the year I decided to take two languages instead of one, which might not seem like a big deal but it actually is quite the challenge. I am fortunate growing up already bilingual (with Japanese) all my life. And I am now taking sign language and Chinese and am absolutely loving both! Personally, I find it really interesting the origins of words and how to carry on a language in certain countries. Also learning the culture of a country and the language is very fascinating!

Those are just a few highlights of my 2015, hope you enjoyed! I hope you all had a great year, and that your 2016 will be even better.

- Marea

Christmas 2015

This post is WAYYYYYYY late, oops :/

Christmas is by far my favorite time of the year, the music, good food, warm drinks, the decorations, absolutely everything! Seriously, what's not to love about it?! I am personally a huge Christmas fan, and am one of those people that is counting down by no later than November 1st, if not earlier. I understand if you don't celebrate Christmas but I hope you are showing your holiday spirit somewhere! 2015's Christmas for me was a huge success but was also very different than all the previous years.

One thing I got a lot more into this year was Christmas movies! My family was never really into Christmas films until this year, we watched quite a few this year and I enjoyed it so much! One of my best friends is by far the biggest Christmas fan ever and finally got me into Christmas movies this year! One of my favorites I watched this year is called Santa Paws , I am sure you probably have all seen this before but I loved it! It was such a cute movie, and just put me in the Christmas spirit and made me feel so happy :) If you love puppies and Christmas this is definitely the movie for you!

                                                         Image Courtesy of: IMBD

This year was also different because my family didn't do advent calendars. Every year that I can remember we always buy chocolate advent calendars but this year we decided not to. Which was kinda sad, but the chocolate was never really good in them anyway haha. This coming Christmas my mom and I thought it would be a lot more fun if we could make our own!

Another thing that was different this year was that we had company! Almost every year my grandmother comes to visit us and we celebrate, but this year it was much more fun! My aunt and uncle drove out plus my cousin flew out with my grandma. I have to admit it got a bit crazy with all the people in our small house, but we managed, and it was a ton of fun.

Image courtesy of my camera's self timer

This year was the year of no photos in my family. Somehow we managed to not take any photos! We had a really hard time making our family Holiday card because of it! But by the end of the year, I was determined to get at least one good photo. My cousin, Owen, the youngest boy in the photo above, hates having his picture taken but this is the best one we got! 

Last but no least, one of my favorite memories of this Winter break was playing the board game Quelf with my family. If you ever get the chance to play this game I 100% recommend it, it's a ton of fun! It's an awesome game to play with a bunch of friends but also awesome for families!

In the end, this Christmas was definitely very different than previous years but it was a good change. I look forward to the years to come, and hope you all had an awesome holiday season.

- Marea

Adventures in Tahoe!

Wow, it has been awhile since I have written. Oops. Also - my blog is all over the place, and I need to fix it as soon as possible. :/

Anyways, I thought I would write a little bit about my trip to Tahoe this year!

Overall this trip was a major success, filled with lots of laughter, memories, and I got to be reunited with my childhood best friends. 10 kids, and 10 adults in one cabin was pretty crowded but was definitely one of the highlights of my year.

Most of these girls I have known since day 1 (literally) except for Mina, Saki, and Joe. Mina is the one in with the glasses at the top, Saki is in the background eating udon noodles haha, and little Joe is the adorable and only boy in the photo. The little boy in the photo, Joe, I had met before but not Mina and Saki. But I am really glad I got to hang out with them too, they were both really nice and we had such a good time. Also - my friend Momo, my brother, and Ken-chan did not get in the photo because they were either asleep, or else wear haha!The Tahoe trip was my Christmas present from my parents which I am so grateful for, it was loads of fun and maybe we can even go next year. ;)

 What was really nice about this trip was the fact that all of our parents are still really good friends and still keep in touch after all these years. All of our moms are Japanese and all of our dads are American, what a surprise! ;) Since my family moved to Utah, I have not gotten to hang out with these girls but when we do get to see each other we always make the best of it.

The trip also included lots of skiing, which I have to admit is not my favorite sport ever but since I was will friends which made it 10 times better.

All pictures were taken by my friends or me :)





I also managed to take about over 100 pictures maybe even 200, which I had to include because Tahoe is absolutely gorgeous! If you ever get the chance to go there I completely recommend it!




Another highlight of this epic trip was the food. If you have ever had Japanese food, you probably know that it tastes AMAZING. With 5 moms from Japan in a kitchen you are bound to get amazing food!  New Years was the biggest feast, filled with lots of traditional Japanese food, it is called Osechi. Osechi is a traditional Japanese meal that is eaten during New years.

We got to end the trip with an awesome tasting Ice Cream cake from Dairy Queen! My brothers birthday was the day we get back from Winter break and my mom and I thought it would be a lot more fun to have a small celebration with everyone together while in Tahoe. We choose an Oreo ice cream cake, which tasted incredible! If you like oreo's and ice cream this is definitely the cake for you, Dairy Queen also did an awesome job with the presentation!


Overall, the trip was incredible and was so much fun, I am so glad I got to spend my new years with so many of my family friends. I hope you all had an awesome new years/winter break!

Until next time,
- Marea

Story Time | A Squirrel in the Toilet?! PT. 2

If you are interested in the rest of this story here is part two:
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        Twenty minutes later I hear the key jiggle in the door knob, I see my dad walk through the doors, and we grab some paper towels just in case it drips onto the carpet, and run back to the bathroom. 

My dad takes the books off the toilet seat, then opens the lid to the toilet. He slowly brings the tongs towards the toilet bowl.  At this point the baby ground squirrel wasn’t moving much so it went pretty smoothly from there. Luckily, there was a sliding door that went outside from my parents room, so we put the squirrel down outside on the deck.

The squirrel was very wet, and the weather was freezing cold so we grabbed a blow dryer and to attempted to dry it off. He didn’t move much and we all felt sad for it. After awhile of drying it off outside in the cold winter evening, we turned off the dryer.

The four of us headed inside and every once in awhile checked on it, but it was still there.  After about an hour my friend left, and the next day we went outside to see if the squirrel was still there, sadly, it was still there and it died. We couldn’t leave it laying on the deck so my brother and I decided to burry it. We have a pretty big backyard, that’s actually very good for sledding so there was plenty of open space to bury it. My brother and I put on snow clothes and headed out in the cold. Put on many layers, grabbed a some disposable gloves, and the same pair of tongs we used earlier. Even though the squirrel was already dead, we still carefully picked up the squirrel. We used the tongs and picked it up. The front and end of the ground squirrel limped forward and backwards, while we walked to the area where we were going to burry it. Once we put it down, my brother, dad, and I all worked together to dig a deep whole through the snow into the ground. Once we finished that, we took the squirrel and gently placed it into the hole, we pushed the snow back over the hole and pressed the snow down. 

We all walked back up to the house, enjoyed a cup delicious Ghirardelli of hot chocolate, and chatted about the weird weekend we had. Although that weekend definitely made for a good story to tell my friends. Now, I’m not sure as to how the squirrel made it into my parents toilet in the very back of my house, but somehow it did! Although, my mom and I concluded that it must of ran through the garage and when my brother left the door open and it came through. Somehow, none of us managed to notice a baby squirrel in our house! And that is one memory I will never forget.

      Fast forward to two years later, my dad had mentioned that maybe the squirrel would have disintegrated into the ground so my brother and I rushed outside one summer to check and see. Grabbed the shovels, and dug into the ground, but the farther and farther we dug there was nothing there. To this day, I think that the squirrel must have disintegrated because no matter how far or how wide we dug we couldn’t find it. 

THE END

Here is another picture of a ground squirrel that made me laugh, haha :)

Image Courtesy of: Google

Sorry that my blog is so all over the place, I am still trying to figure some things out but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Hope you have a nice day!

Bye! ~ Marea

Story Time | A Squirrel in the Toilet?! PT. 1

Hello again, today I am going to be sharing probably the weirdest thing that has happened in my life. I decided to split this up into two parts because I don't want to drag it out to be too long, anyways enjoy.
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        This is for sure a memory that I will never forget. The day I found a ground squirrel in my toilet. Now I don’t know how this happened, and how the squirrel managed to make it into the toilet, but it did. 

One late winter afternoon, about six years ago, my friend and I found a baby ground squirrel in the toilet. Here is how it all went down;

I remember the feeling of boredom I had that day. I called all the friends I could, and finally one of them answered with a yes. Luckily, she lived just a few houses down from me so it was walking distance.

At the time we were both very young so we mostly played with toys a lot, which at the time my friend and I thought was the funnest thing ever. After a few hours of that, I had to use the bathroom. I rushed to the restroom and opened the toilet seat…

  There it was. A small, brown ground squirrel laying sideways in the toilet bowl. Casually drinking the gross water, that my mom had just cleaned. At first I was speechless, finally after a moment of staring into the toilet I yell for my mom and my friend. When I yelled to my mom that there was something in the toilet, I could hear from the tone of my mom’s voice that she very confused. My friend and mom both rush into the room, and they both glance down at the toilet. The two of them speechless, by instinct my mom grabs the toilet seat and drops it shut. For the mean time, we kept the lid shut with a stack of books on top in case the squirrel tried to jump out. Then my mom grabs her phone and dials to call my dad. After a few rings my dad answers, and my mom tells us to go to the garage and grab the huge pair of tongs. <--- Literally like a giant pair of these, don't ask why we have a pair.

After rummaging through some of the junk in our garage finally I find the huge tongs my mom was talking about. They looked like a pair of salad prongs that were extremely long. The two of us rush back to the bathroom and my mom tells us we have to pick it up and get it outside onto the deck. The three of us discuss who should do it, but we made the decision to wait for my dad to get back. 

  I can imagine it was probably weird for my dad to leave his job to get a ground squirrel out of the toilet. But I guess that’s life! Unpredictable, random, and fun! This was definitely one of those weird experiences!

Check out my next post for PT. 2 of this weird experience!

This is pretty much what the squirrel looked like from what I can remember.

Image Courtesy of: Google