Return to the Motherland !

Yup that's right, it's China Time ! Lol right now it's 6 am, and i haven't even slept yet.  I've been up packing and painting. Why painting you ask? Because i had to finish the ones i did in art class and send pictures to the teacher for some student book he's making. Here are the somewhat finished paintings:

Oil over acrylic. Lol how random is this? Our whole class had to draw hands and fruit, so this is what i ended up with.

Another oil over acrylic.  This time the teacher told us all to draw leaves.  See the pattern here?

For this one, i got to do whatever i wanted (:  Only acrylic, no oil though (it's huge, about 2 x 3 feet).

Anyway, now it's 11:42 !! (don't worry i slept two hours).  Went out to breakfast with emma and victor this morning to panera :)  We're leaving soon and i still have more to pack! Typical.  So yeah i should probably stop blogging.  I'll blog lots from the motherland if it's not blocked by the great firewall of china. Ha. Ha. Bye !

Reality Check

So it's been over a week since i've gotten back from camp !  Which means i should probably talk about the people i've met and all the stuff i've done, right? Wrong.  Some local drama will be the topic for today.  I'll keep this entry short since i shouldn't really delve into detail about the stuff that's happened.  The biggest thing that's bothering me at the moment is openness.  How much we choose to reveal to our friends, and vice versa.  Shouldn't it be easier when all of the walls come down and we can get rid of our insecurities and suspicions?  Along the way we might get hurt, but in the end, i believe that it will be for the better, as long as people take responsibility for the repercussions of their actions.  But usually people can't do that, because it's far easier to put the blame on someone else, in order to protect yourself and escape unscathed.  And sometimes you feel so at ease that it makes you even more vulnerable after the layers have been shed. Haha i feel like i am talking like a philosopher, but that's basically what my situation feels like right now.  It seemed so easy and relaxing at the beginning to come clean about everything, but that's not how reality plays out.  In a perfect world we can all be ourselves and nothing more.  There are no nasty secrets or hurtful judgements to be made about the people who are closest to us.  But in real life these things do exist, and you have to be completely oblivious to think otherwise.  Maybe that's what i've been doing these past few days, and to be honest, i liked it a lot better than actually having to deal with the whole situation haha.  Ignorance is bliss isn't it ?  That was ridiculously cliche, but you get the point.  Except not really because this blog post has been the most vague and ambiguous thing i've ever written.  I hope your brain doesn't hurt from trying to make sense of this random gibberish. Anyway, continuing on.  After you do talk to these people about all the things you have all been locking away inside, it creates even more secrets.  Do i tell them to my other close friends?  Do i keep my mouth shut?  Is there a right thing to do or not?  Are both wrong?  Are you sick of all of these rhetorical questions? I'm not sure about the answer to any of them except the last, and that would be yes.  On that note, i'm going to sleep.  Art class in the morning! Yay, what's new.

Shalom Dragon !

Ahhh !! We actually performed yesterday for the first time !!!! I am so proud of my band :)  (We got second! ...probably cuz we sold the most tickets...but still) The day before our performance, we hardcore practiced for atleast 4 hours, and then yesterday morning we practiced for a few hours too before the show. Holy crap i felt like i was going to puke my guts out right before we went on, i was so nervous !! But after we started playing, the nervousness melted away, and it just felt like any other practice in dan's basement.  My wonderful wonderful friends came to watch/support us, i love you guys !!  Thanks to nicole, we got footage of our performance, and thanks to mara, we have pictures to go with it.  Every time i was feeling a little uneasy, all i had to do was glance over at my screaming friends  adoring fans, and their loudness and enthusiasm made me feel better.   After the performance i was feeling really high, and the band that played after us was ammmazzzingg: [ Station Baby ] Their bassist was crazy good, and crazy.  Their guitar player was awesome, and their drummer was so cool.  Also their singer had a really strong and unique voice.  Pretty sure dan fell in love with their band.  I don't really have that much time to finish this blog since i'm leaving in 15 minutes for architecture camp! Lol.  So i'll finished up quickly.  

The smashed guitar !!

The last act of the night was Sterling Daze. and they were crazy.  The lead singer kept jumping onto amps and even the bass drum.  Also he didn't wear shoes lol, something me and mara found very amusing.  The best part was when the guitar player kicked over his amp, smashed his guitar on the ground, dove into the drumset, and then laid among the rubble.  It was absolutely ridiculous, every one was gaping at him.  Eventually he just got up and calmly walked away.  I even heard from my friends later that they saw him lift up his shirt, and he had bloody gashes on his back. Ugh.

Adoring Fans !

I promise i'll put up more pics next time ! Seriously gotta go now. Also expect a blog about architecture camp! OH and i forgot to mention it in this post, but on wednesday i went to nyc with ed and albert (camp friends) and it was really fun !  They make fun of me a lot though :(  It makes me cry in dark corners.  If either of you are reading this, i hope you feel guilty.  Hahaha anyway, camp time! Be back in a week !

Back! And Livin' the Life.....Kind Of.

Yup so i'm back from my super college trip! Actually it wasn't really that long, and i got back a few days ago, but still.  So you guys want to hear about it? Of course you do.  Well, you don't really have a say in it, so ha, here we go!

This is the outside of the library ! 

Day 1 was the (mostly) fabulous city of New Haven for Yale University !  After a fantastic car ride full of screaming and crying (my sister, not me lol) we arrived at around 12 in time for the info sess and tour.  Yale is beautiful !! Especially the architecture.  I was obsessed with the library building cuz it was made from some kind of stone that was cut a certain thickness to look completely normal form the outside, but it let in natural light.  How sick is that?  My dad made fun of me because i was "over-reacting" but trust me, it was amazing.  I tried to take pics of it, but you have to see it in person to fully understand the awesomeness.  Also, the dinning hall was gorgeous.  Me and my dad (my dad and I for you grammar freaks) agreed that it looked like something Harry Potter- esque.  The people at Yale were different than i thought they were going to be.  Of course they were really nice, but also they were....kinda weird.  It might've just been the people i ended up touring with/ listening to talk, but man, most of them just seemed pretty eccentric. Which was actually kind of a pleasant surprise.  This one guy who was answering questions for the student sess was definitely high out of his mind haha it was kind of fantastic (did i mention he was sorta super dreamy?)

Here's the inside of the library wall, pretty huh?

Another view of the library.  This is the manuscript/valuable-old-stuff library, so everything is in the center and protected by a big glass case. 

This is the dining hall ! It's a lot more breathtaking in person, but still. 

 And to finish off Yale, here are some random pictures of the pretty pretty architecture:

Lol my sister.

Haha and i had to put this one up too. Idk why i found it so funny.

See the peddlers? 

Next on our stop was Cambridge MA for Hahvahd !  I was actually kind of annoyed my parents made me go because i literally have no chance of getting in, but i went, and to my chagrin, i loved it.  So now i'm probably going to end up applying, greaaat.  We got there monday night so we could check it out on tuesday.  The town is the cutest thing ever ! and there were bands playing all around harvard square.  My favorite of them all was this one called [ Melodeego ] and they were absolutely amazing !  Besides for the fact that they were extremely talented, they were into going green, (actually they were kind of like modern day hippies) so they actually had these people peddling for them (volunteers in the audience) to generate all the power for their amps/lights.  It was really really great.  Also their lyrics and songs were extremely creative.  Instant points to Harvard? I think yes.  Also i went up and got one of their info cards that had their fb page and stuff on it, and get this, you can plant it after you like them on fb....and fucking flowers will grow.  100% compostable seed paper, nbd.

They also had these cute light-seat things everywhere! Actually, i'm not sure if it's supposed to be sat on, but....yeah, the option was there, so we took it. 

Then came the actual campus and all that jazz.  The weather was great, just like it was in New Haven, and the campus was pretty. I don't care what abby says, i loved it ! (She thinks it's ugly) But dude, just look at these buildings !! My dad spent a lot of the time comparing it to Yale which kiinndda pissed me off, but hey.  The people at Harvard were also not what i expected.  They were really nice and much more normal than the Yale people.  Also, i didn't sense any of the stuck-up pretentious air that i've heard so much about.  Or maybe i'm not that discerning.  But in any case, i really enjoyed the Hahvahd experience !

No, this is actually not a church! 

Also i got to try Pinkberry for the first time, and it was deliciously delicious.  It was basically Red Mango, except not self served, and the froyo was a little more tart.  I also went to Urban Outfitters for the first time, and it's sooo coool.  I wasn't able to buy any clothes since my sister started screaming and we had to leave the store, but my dad was able to buy a mini ping pong set.  It's actually the cutest thing ever.  It comes with a mini net that has suction cups on the sides, so you can play anywhere!  Speaking of my sister, she misbehaved a lot on this trip.  Somehow she learned to scream louder and be more obnoxious.



I didn't think it was possible.  While we were at a restaurant, she started going crazy because she didn't like the high-chair, and when my parents left to go attend to her, the store-owner commented to me that she was going to be such a spoiled child.  I had to agree, and my parents are starting to realize it too.  Oh god.  Anyway, after Cambridge, we went to a nearby city to visit ....my birthplace! Well not the hospital, but the apartment my parents lived in at the time. While we were at the supermarket there i found the most delicious chocolate known to man: Andes!  Haha, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but i hadn't seen them for the longest time, and i was really excited about it.  Lol, it's even important enough for me to upload a picture of it.

It's beautiful.

Goddamnit. 

Anyway, it's 1:09 am and i have to wake up at 6:30 for art boot camp. Yay.  So i better type fast ! Ahhh!! Okay, so next was Providence, Rhode Island for Brown and RISD (Rhode Island School of Design).  It was....SO GOD DAMN HILLY.  That was a major problem for me, the most inactive nub ever.  But besides for that, it was a pretty cute town.  I heard it's kind of unsafe, but according to the tour-guides (...should i believe them?) it's a nice, young town, and has recently gotten a lot more safe.  The cool thing about brown and risd, is that you can take classes at either location if you get into one.  Brown was nice, and our tour guide was hilarious! Risd was pretty cool too, and the people were really eccentric, which is one reason i'm not so intent on art school.  I'd rather go for a normal college, and major in art. Okay, i really don't want to type that much, so i'll just post the pics, lol.

More hills, greeeeeaat.

Brown !

The cool clock that my dad was really fascinated by at the RISD library.  He took this picture, and was really proud of it hahaha.

The super cool wall thing that I was obsessed with haha, it morphs from dots into cut out letters.  The stairs lead to this high reading area thing, where you can stare down at the rest of the library

Yup, so that was my trip in a nutshell.  I probably had way more to say about it, but it's now 1:30, and the actual trip happened almost a week ago !  Oh procrastination.  Anyway, some new things in my life ? Mostly just band practices, getting ready for the show on saturday !! Also, mara had a fun BBQ at her house yesterday to celebrate 4th of July ! Thanks for having us over :)  My chicken kabob was very yummy ♥ Then we went to watch the fireworks, which were gorgeous (and blinding).  Anyway, i need to get ready for tomorrow. After art class boot camp (legit, it's every morning for 4 hours. And i live an hour away), i have to rush home and take a train to NYC to meet up with Ed and Albert (camp friends that i haven't seen in 2 years!)  I'll blog about that later of course since i have no life, good night !