My first name is Ganda.
It rhymes with Wanda, not with panda. My last name is Suthivarakom. Sue-thee-VAH-rah-comb. See, not so hard. In sixth grade, my arch enemy was Roy Kim (which obviously meant I liked him). I once forgot to write my name on my homework on the same day that Roy did. As punishment, we had to each write our own names 100x. My punishment was almost three times as severe as Roy's, as his name has a measly six letters while mine has a whopping 17. It was the only time I was ever really miffed about the length of my name.
When I was in high school, I had an am/pm mini mart problem. In the ten minutes between last class and show choir rehearsal, I'd pop across the street to the gas station for a hot dog and a huge soda. Mr. Willert, our very Corky St. Clair choir director, called me into his office one day and accused me of eating during rehearsal, which I denied. (I only ate in between idiotic renditions of songs like "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and "Someone to Watch Over Me".) Mr. Willert said, "Ganda, I don't think you're really committed to being a Dream Street Singer." (I'm serious. I didn't just pick it up from Donnie Darko.) So I got kicked out of show choir for eating. That's pretty much the story of my life.
I eat. I drink. I am one woman. I live and love in Brooklyn and have been in NYC for over eight years now. I am originally from Southern California. I went to college in Northern California. I also spent a gray year in London.
I was born in the year of the Snake. My star sign is Scorpio, my rising sign is Leo, my moon is in Aries. This will make sense to some people who know me. Other people who know me will be completely confounded by this knowledge. Ultimately, it means I cannot be held accountable for anything I've ever said or done.
I'm a freelance writer with a dayjob because I'm good at spending money but I suck at hustling. I used to work in book publishing, but now I work in magazine publishing. But hey, if you want me to feature your book, send me a copy. If I read it, I'll put it up.
I decided to put my picture up because it exists in other places and I'm a blogger, not a journalist; but then I decided to take it back down because I think it's weird for people to know what I look like; and then I put it back up and took it down a million more times.
I also sing sometimes. I am in All Music Guide twice -- once as Ganda and once as Ganda Suthivarakom. One entry says my genre is "Jazz" and the other says I'm "Avant Garde", which is weird because I like Mariah Carey and the last song I bought on iTunes was "Open Arms" by Journey.
More than you ever wanted to know:
allergies: All melons in varying degrees, but especially cantaloupe and honeydew.
guilty pleasures: Chef Boyardee, sugar coated coconut chunks from the nut vendors on the street
drink of choice: Pimm's cup, Italian sparkling wine
milk or dark chocolate: I like milk chocolate. I know it's not very gourmand-y, but I like it. And I like chocolate with stuff in it -- caramel, fruit, nuts, etc. But I prefer plain M&Ms to peanut.
beer or wine: I don't like beer, just starting to learn about wine, and I'll always choose bubbly over both.
relationship status: So utterly single. During my formative years, did tons of extra-curricular activities in lieu of learning to socialize with members of the opposite sex. I mean, what do you think blogging is about? Extra-curricular activities still dominate my calendar, but I'm trying to make room to go out on a couple of dates before I turn thirty. I mean, come on, somebody should ask me out already. There's very little wrong with me, comparatively.
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