Buzz Magazine Orange County

When I was a small child my grandmother made sure that I was included in any kitchen activities, she was a small business owner as well. In the 80s she came the American from Thailand and opened up a Chinese restaurant here in Long Beach, back then Thai food was not popular so she had to adjust. Eventually, over time she would bring in Thai dishes to expose the community to Thai cuisine. My grandmother was a hard worker and enjoyed being able to provide great good to the local community, growing up I too loved being in the kitchen and cooking dishes for my family. As I grew older I knew that I was meant to be in the restaurant industry, I started my first job at 16 and this was just at a local Papa Johns where I learned the basics of food handling, leadership, cash handling, customer service, and many other skills. I spent my high school years there and branched out to different food establishments, I became a young mother at 19 and I knew I needed to advance my career quickly in order to provide for my son. At the time the economy was not doing so well and I let his father control my career path, I was influenced to go to school for the medical field rather than pursuing my passion. During this time I landed a job at the Disneyland Resort when I was done with the medical field education I was working in the kitchens at Disney, I absolutely hated my internship in a Pharmacy but I loved being in the kitchen. I decided to let go of the medical path and focus on what I was passionate about instead, I was no longer with my son’s father at this time as well so following my career with no one influencing my decisions was a blessing. I spent many years within the resort and learned so much from many different chefs, I also went to culinary school at Cerritos college under Chef Pierini and received formal culinary education. I moved up within the kitchens at Disney and after 8 years I was starting to feel stagnant and wanted more. My career at Disney came to an end back in 2017 and I was introduced to the small business kitchen industry, I became a partner at my previous endeavor but it came to an end this year during the start of the pandemic. I realized that I was destined for much greater and that I could do the same amount of work for my own business so I made a move and took the leap of faith and opened up Hangry Belly on my own with a little help from my current life partner. So far it’s been good and my main goal is to have the same happiness that my grandmother did when she was providing great food to the local community.

The name Shape Pitaki was born from the toddler next door who said “Shape” instead of “Shane” and “Pitaki” when attempting to say “Detective” in “Last Chance Detective”. Kids say the darndest things! Greg Johnson (bass) and I had played together in bands for quite a while and he suggested that we start a band using the songs that I’ve written over the years. Being a kickass drummer, I decided, “Yeah, Dave Grohl did it, why not me?” Since I took the helm up front singing and playing guitar, we had to rifle through a few drummers until we found our honeydew, Mike Willson. We released our first LP “Lonely This Is” in 2014 and played numerous shows all over Southern California to support it. We released the EP “Let’s Get Gnarly & Chill” in 2017 with a music video for our single “Can’t Go Home” and a tour up and down the West Coast with a couple runs out to Austin, TX for SXSW. We’re ramping up for our next release, aptly titled, “Let’s Get Gnarly & Die” during this very mellow and not insane year of 2020.

I’ve been a musician all my life. I have two musicians for parents who’ve been super supportive the entire time. They never forced me into anything, I’ve always been naturally drawn to music. I started playing drums at age 4 and guitar at age 10. My background is 100% grounded in rock n’ roll, but again having two musician parents has exposed me to all kinds music from all over the world. Indeed, my degree is technically in Ethnomusicology (it’s really just a Jazz degree from UCLA, but that’s a complicated story haha!) Anyway, I’ve played in various rock bands throughout the years and met up with the Filmspeed boys about 4 years ago. And we haven’t looked back since! We get along swimmingly, and are continuing our eternal struggle to dominate the world with rock n’ roll.

I’m not exactly sure “where we are today,” I just know that I personally try to make music as much a part of my life as possible. Whether it’s playing, listening, writing, recording, producing, or teaching, as long as it’s music related I’m happy! I think I can speak for the other guys too on this one that that’s pretty accurate for them as well.

My love for beauty began while in high school when I would create my own beauty products such as facial masks, face scrubs and waxes as I was very hairy. I remember staying up all night as I created these products. During my years in high school, there was an esthetician program which I could apply to get my license by the time I graduated as I had a desire to open up my own salon one day. After High School, I enrolled in a degree program at the University of Arizona where I pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Business with an Accounting focus. It was during this time that I truly began to love waxing and how it would boost the self-confidence of people when I helped them with their skin. I found my niche in helping people with in-grown bumps which made them move from feeling insecure to confident. After university, I worked in the corporate world as I provided waxing services on the side. In 2015, this love for providing these services to people moved me to leave the corporate world and enter into skincare full-time. I then moved to California in 2016 and then finally opened up 3BWaxing in 2017. I worked for other salons for some time and soon decided that it was time to take the leap of faith and begin my own business. This would help me to have more flexibility instead of being confined to the protocols of another company. I wanted that sense of autonomy to be able to vacation whenever I desired as well. This leap of faith would also give me the privilege of being invested in my clients’ journey which would give me a greater chance to help them experience the best results.

I graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Psychology and not having a clue about what to do with it. All i knew was I wanted to work with people. I spent a few years in the HR field before having kids and taking time off to raise them. It was during this time I realized that I wanted a small business in which I can pursue my passion but still be able to balance my personal life. For 6 years, I was the owner of a Kumon Math and Reading center in which I helped many students maximize their true potential with their academics. Since then I was doing Tech Recruiting for startups across California. One consistent feedback I received from the software engineers, developers, and programmers I recruited was that they wished there was a coding school around when they were younger. This feedback led me to opening The Coder School – Cerritos/La Palma. I couldn’t be prouder of being the first coding school in a community my family and I call home. I have 2 tech savvy boys who remind me each day the value and importance of technology in our world today and I am thrilled to be able to help young kids everywhere learn to code so that they can change the world!

My name is Christine I sale lashes it’s use to be called daya lashes it started when my cousin she sale hair it’s called Gold’n glam and she is so ambitious and always promoting and I was like want to start my own business I just remembering I use to wear lashes a lot and people would compliment me about my lashes then it pop up to my head why not start selling lashes it did well but I wanted to do something more so now I’m going to sale hand bags with my lashes and I’m changing the name to Zahrä. I’m still reconstruction my business I’m honestly recovering from bad anxiety attacks that Ive been happening and now I want to be more involved and help and listening to people who suffers from anxiety attacks and let them know they are not alone but if it wasn’t for my my parents, my brothers , my boyfriend Nate my close friends like Michaela, Miah, jaila , Domo, jewels and another Domo and my cousin briana I would probably still not know what I was dealing with so I want to hear more stories give advice on how to deal with anxietys it’s a scary feeling. I want to help so if you know anyone who deals with this dm me tell me stories. About it give me techniques advice on you dealt with it