Saturday, January 28, 2012

One Week of Madness, Mall Madness.

AKA the best game ever created by humankind. Haha well not really, but close enough.  Anyway, that title is a little misleading, since it implies that I've been playing Mall Madness all week. Which I haven't, I assure you (I only discovered the magic of that game tonight). However, this week was full of madness, midterm madness that is.  Holy crap I crammed so much and probably got around 4 hours of sleep per day.  But thankfully the pain is over, and out of my midterms I got 4 A's, 1 A-, and 1 B (which was in AP Lit and probably the one I'm most proud of haha).  I need to stop cramming. Like seriously. If I want atleast 50% of my hair to stay black by the time I graduate college, I should probably cut back on my stress levels.  Anyway, here are some pictures from the week that I haven't had a chance to blog.  On monday (while I was studying math) my parents made dumplings for the new year! My dad bought some flour and made the peels from scratch. Usually we just buy the peels pre-made, but since the new year is a big deal, he put on his sassy apron and pulled out his dumpling-peel-making skills. Just look at that concentration! Pure genius. 

Mr. V's giant bucket of soap. Idk why but I think it's hilarious.
Also on monday, I had my first pit-orchestra practice! For most of the songs I have to quickly jump from timpani to glockenspiel, to cymbals, to triangle.  I was like running around completely clueless hahaha, hopefully I can get my act together before we need to accompany the singers. Fast forward to wednesday since absolutely nothing else happened besides for more mental torture. Anyway, I had my art midterm so Mr. V taught me how to dip the zinc etching plate I had worked on in class in acid. Here's a quick rundown of the whole etching process just to clear things up.  So first you start with a little rectangle of either copper or zinc.  Mine was a zinc plate that probably measured about 6x4. Then I coated it with this disgusting black goey crap that stains your skin unless you scrub it off with paint thinner (also disgusting). Once this layer dries, I used a needle-esque tool to draw onto the metal.  So basically I was scratching away the asphalten (black crap) to expose the metal underneath. Then when I finished the drawing, we dipped it into a bath of nitric acid which ate away at the exposed metal parts AKA the drawing that I wanted to end up with (the black stuff is acid-resistant). When the zinc is reacting with the acid, I got to use a feather to brush away all of the gas bubbles that were forming in the cracks.  Personally I thought the whole feather thing was one of the coolest parts.  It felt so ancient and enduring. Not sure if that made sense, but yeah.  Anyway, the final step is to pour paint thinner and denatured alcohol onto the plate and wipe away the back stuff.  You are left with a zinc plate with your picture carved into it. :) Then the only thing left to do is ink the crevices, scrub the ink off the surface, and run it through the press. Here are two of my prints, drying on the line in their half-finished glory. Today I used this weird speckle method to coat the background and then dip it in acid, so I haven't gotten a chance to print the final stage yet, but those should be done next week sometime.  I'm excited to see how it'll look like done, but at the same time I'm nervous that I screw it up by adding a speckled background. Okay, I'll stop rambling about confusing art stuff now.
My dad told me that it was creepy -_-
The kid I tutor for and his little Chihuahua :)
So this post is starting to get kind of long which is weird since I usually only blog super short posts that are straight to the point. Maybe it's because it's almost 3:30 am. Maybe. Anyway, see that wheel on my desk? It's the Chinese zodiac poster that my mom made to bring to Kaykay's school for her presentation on chinese new year (I drew all the little animals, and they're all holding signs with their characters on them). She also made springs rolls, stuffed red envelopes, and taught them how to make their very own paper lantern.  When my mom starts some sort of project, she really puts herself into it, worrying over every little detail and trying to make everything perfect.  I think that's where I get it from. -_- Thanks a lot mom. Below the wheel is my art homework for the week.  It's kind of hard to see, but we replicated a regular loose leaf page and then had to doodle whatever we wanted on top of it.  It's one of the more free projects we've had in a while and technically it was due today buuutt that didn't really happen, so Mr. V gave me until monday. Today I was frantically trying to finish it during band, second period. Lol, everyone was playing music and I was literally just sitting on the ground behind all the xylophones, doodling my brains out. Speaking of brains, I should go experience some delta waves. Oh psychology. Good Night !

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Year of the Dragon

XXI Forever dress, INC sweater, grandma's earrings
Happy New Year!  What a great way to kick off the new year, with delicious food and a giant math packet.  My idea of a good time! :) Okay, maybe not so much the impossible stat review, but besides for that, it's been a good new year.  I finished dinner hours ago but I'm still stuffed.  Oh gluttony. To the right is a selfie (no shame).  My dad made me change out of my shitty (but oh so comfortable) sweat pants and hoodie and into something "presentable" for dinner.  Also I had to wear something red.  These shades of magenta were the closest I could get to red.  My theory is that once you get a camera phone, it isn't long before you become a selfie-taking-tool.  Moving on, dinner was deliciousss.  Ugh it hurts.  My mom really outdid herself this year.  Maybe it's because it's the year of the dragon, and she and my dad are both dragons.  Regardless, I need to learn how to cook like her.  My cooking skills comprise mainly of fried rice and scrambled eggs.  I'm also an instant-ramen expert.  College here I come haha. So I just got off the phone with my cousin who arrived in China yesterday (she lives in london).  Ugh I really wish I could've gone back to spend the new year.  I heard the festivities are crazy (and the food is ridiculously delicious).  Stupid midterms ruining everything :( . Anyway I spent a good portion of today studying and looking up new music.  I discovered some songs by Parachute on my iPod and realized that I sorta liked them, so I youtube-d some more of their music and realized that I sorta love them.  My favorites include [ You And Me ] and [ White Dress ] although I do have a soft spot for [ She Is Love ] both that one and the acoustic version.  The one that first got me hooked was [ Something To Believe In ], I lovelovelove how it has saxophone in it and has a blues/gospel feel.  Wait what, am I turning into a music critic now? No, I think I'm just slightly obsessed with this band.  And on that note, time to go, uh, study. Right. 'Night!

Spicy fish and vegetables....AKA the love of my life

I drew the princess....she added the accents <3
Hahahahahaha. Good one.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

If A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words...

Mom's delicious wontons :)
...Then I'll let them do most of the blogging for this week. I've been pretty busy so I haven't had much time to sit down and type. Last saturday I went shopping with mara for her princess dress (voice recital outfit) and watched a really bad new movie on disney channel called "Frinemies" with Mara and Nicole while teaching M how to knit. Sunday, I went shopping with the fam, and hung out at Dan's for boardgames and pingpong that night. Monday was a total do-nothing day. I think I attempted to do homework. Not so sure though. The basses came over to practice since Itkor told me we needed a sectional. -_- Anyway, I think the two hours somewhat paid off, and we went from outrageously terrible to mildly awful.  A big improvement in my opinion. After they left, I tried to start my scratchboard for art....didn't work. The rest of the week was a blur. I tutored twice, went to indoor, went to a fundraiser, and crammed like crazy for all of my end-of-the-marking-period tests. Also somewhere in there I managed to sit down for a solid 7 hours and do my scratchboard (went to sleep at 3, nbd). Friday was another busy day! It was the day before Nicole's birthday and we were going out to dinner at Olive Garden so I wanted to bake her a cake.  After school I rounded up some people, and we baked a two-layer Funfetti cake with chocolate frosting, topped with raspberries. The inside of the cake also had a layer of chocolate and cut up raspberries; in short, a culinary masterpiece. We dubbed it the B.C.E. (Best Cake Ever).  It was my first time making a cake, and definitely something i'll be doing again in the near future :) Yum.  Anyway, we surreptitiously put the cake in another car, and I drove the birthday girl to dinner.  The food was delicious and our waiter, Leo, was hilarious. When we were done eating (and after some under-the-table-kicking confusion) the cake magically appeared, lit and ready to go. We sang to her and she made a wish :) Then we stuffed ourselves and left for her house. Our car got there first so we passed the time by blasting the Hoedown Throwdown from my car (no shame) and doing the dance outside in the dark hahaha. Eventually we went in and started a 200 piece cat puzzle. Don't judge. The rest of them showed up and helped us with the puzzle. Half the people there were allergic to her cats but couldn't stop themselves from petting them lol. Some challenges were made and accepted, and the gamecube was taken out.  All in all, a relaxing night, but jesus christ I was so tired when I got home. Today was an acedemic travesty.  My midterms start on monday, and I haven't studied at all! Also today is almost over so that basically only gives me tomorrow. Maybe typing out this blog wasn't a good idea, but then again I am most productive in blogging when I'm supposed to be doing work. It's a curse. Anyway, happy birthday Nicole! I better go study now.
  
The ever-so-scenic parking garage at the mall
Bassdrum sectional at my house....hard at work.
Art homework - Scratchboard! It's a white paper coated in black, and you used a little knife to expose the white underneath
Fundraiser for indoor drumline at Smashburger - Dan is cold.
Victor wearing a box of gummies. Don't ask why.
Waiting for my ride...I'm on a trashcan!

Happy 18th Ms. Nicole !!!
Inside of our masterpiece
Post-indoor drumline practice. At McDonalds

Olive Garden with....LEO !!

Pathetic attempt to organize my study-materials for midterms :(

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Friday the 13th

Tuning before the practice. Yes I'm a camera-creeper.
......rocked. Who made up that whole bad luck thing anyway? Well, technically I did get sick and lose my voice, but on the bright side we had a Shalom show and then signed up for a volleyball tournament which we lost, but still ended up getting $100 for lmao. Okay, but lets start at the beginning first.  So right after school, I grabbed some pizza and then headed over to Dan's for our last minute practice.  It went pretty well and I miraculously remembered some of our songs. Then they headed off to subway while I went home to hack up some phlegm and eat chinese meatballs. I was a little late to the show (again) but that's okay.  So we ate some pizza, played a little volleyball with some random dude, (pee-d twice), and got on stage for the show.  Sound check was a fail, and suddenly they just told us to start so we did.  Brian's mic wasn't on, and I couldn't even hear myself, so that part was kind of lame.  Dan messed up a little on the first song, which was totally fine, except he felt really really bad about it at the end.  He felt like he let us down or something, which in turn made me feel bad because I didn't want him to blame himself for such an insignificant thing! The rest of the show was totally fine, and I'm sure we all made our fair share of mistakes. Anyway, we signed up for a volleyball tournament which had 8 teams duking it out for the prize of $100. We beat the first team, which got really pissed off and rage-kicked the ball before storming out of the room. We won our second game too, and that team was really chill and shook our hands and everything.  Before the third game Dan had to leave, so we sent him and his equipment home, and came back for the finals.  It was just the four of us, but we channeled Dan's spirit.  Haha not to be all spiritual or anything.  Anyway, the third game was so intense and sadly the other team was still going easy on us.  We each won a game, and eventually lost the third one 27-25.  Then they were like haha too bad we're disqualified since we're college kids! Ha. So here's the money! Lol no wonder they were going easy on us.  They could've easily spiked the ball in our faces every single time if they had wanted too, but hey, i'm not complaining. :) Also this one guy on that team was gorgeous. His eyes were so blue they were almost clear, or maybe I was too dazed by his beauty to fully comprehend the actual color of his eyes.  Nicole and Mara call him the Bradley-Cooper-look-alike.  And it's true, he looks exactly like him.  He was wearing a Trojans shirt, so nicknames of "condom-boy" were also used in reference to him.  During our game we made eye contact on several occasions and when he smiled his eyes get all crinkly.  I might've awkwardly managed to smile back, I might've not. Who knows. We also made eye contact during our other games since he was the score keeper/ announcer.  Clearest. Eyes. Ever. Okay, I am going to stop sounding like a pubescent girl now.  Good night!

Chilling in his kings uniform show attire. Nbd.
Drum pose
Cake eating contest! 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Back-Tracking

So remember that post-Christmas-post I promised you guys? (Oho I am so clever) Well, here it is! It's probably going to be a lot shorter than what it would've been if I had posted it in time, since my memory has as much storage capacity as my almost-full computer.  Yuck, I have to delete files everyday just to make sure it doesn't freeze, but I digress.

Anyway, last last friday I got my hair cut.  It was a pretty chill day actually....broke into the art room nbd. Lmao, I felt so proud of myself.  Somehow this random door to the school was open, but the art wing was locked. The school was dark and deserted; I felt pretty creepy.  But I didn't bring home the materials over the break I needed for the homework, soooo the B&E was necessary.  Any way, I found a sketchy door open to the auditorium.  Felt my way across the stage in the pitch black, walked around and behind the crew area behind the stage, managed to get into one of the art rooms, clumsily navigated through the winding dark room, and finally made it into the right art room! I felt so clever.  Managed to stay and work on my painting for almost two hours, blasting music....until a janitor found me and kicked me out hahaha. Took some pictures! I looove the art room.  It's filled with so much random junk.



Yumyum, impregnated me with a food baby
Saturday was December 31st and I went to the city with some friends!  We almost called it off, but decided to go anyway at the last second, and I'm so glad we decided to go :) After a long (and cramped) train ride, we got there and wandered around looking for korea street.  Somehow managed to find it thanks to my amazing navigational capabilities (lol jk, nicole's mom told her to follow anyone except for me), and eventually got lured into a Korean BBQ place called [Shilla]. It was delicious.  I got this spicy tofu and kimchi dish that was served over white rice and came in a pot, still frying away.  Anyway, we ate, and were merry.  What's that from? I forget. So we eventually left to go check out the christmas decorations and of course the giant tree! At one point we got lost (no I was not leading the group) and ended up kind of walking with a huge mob. Okay, it was somewhat sparse, but it still counts as a mob. Since it was New Years Eve, everyone was pooling into Times Square to get ready for midnight.....it was 3pm holy crap.  Anyway, a police officer told us we were going the exact opposite direction of Rockefeller Center (again, I was not leading the way), so we spun around and walked two blocks until we got to the tree!  It was nicole's first time seeing the tree so she took some pictures of it, and I made her take pictures with it lol.

Mine in the one with the kiwi! And yes that's my hand.
Then we were a littttle bit pressed for time, but I insisted we go to Pinkberry. Best. Decision. Ever. Holy jesus I love their frozen yogurt! It's a little more tart than Red Mango and Sweet Orange. Also a little more expensive, but hey it's worth it.  Ha, look at me, the frozen yogurt connoisseur.  Also, Harvard Square has a Pinkberry, so I'm all covered for college :) Anyway, we got to the station just in time and boarded the train home! After a quick dinner, I headed over to mara's for the new years eve party! Holy POOP her food was so goddamn delicious.  My food baby from NYC grew to like 11 ounces jesus christ. I literally could not stop myself from taking bite after delicious bite.  Funny thing that happened at the party was one of my friends was totally high and came anyway.  It was a little rude, and I felt bad that mara had to deal with him (not to mention a couple of drunkies that stopped by for a bit) but it was extremely entertaining for a little while...until it got old.  But thankfully he sobered up...eventually lol, and was mortified by the videos some people took of him.  We eventually ushered in the new year with glasses of sparkling cider that shone and reflected the joy and hope evident in our bright eyes.  Yes that's my attempt at being dramatic and optimistic.  But we did drink some sparkling cider and it was pretty exciting to leave behind all the stress of 2011 and look forward to new beginnings that'll take place in 2012.  Awn what a great way to end a blog post :) too bad I'm not done yet.

Getting his ass kicked in Dragon Ball Z Budakai 2
Sunday! Ed came up to visit! My dad also decided that we were gonna go out and get my iPhone that day, so we had to drag Ed with us to the mall.  Sorry about that haha.  Had some delicious quesadillas at Qdoba and then went home and gave him the grand tour of our town. which probably took all of 5 minutes. Lol I love suburbia. Anyway, we ended up spending the day building my lego Robbie House and playing video games with my sister (she kicked his ass).  After dinner at the diner, I drove us to Red Mango (yes, frozen yogurt two days in a row, no shame) and we sat and just talked for a while.  He told me that he was a very serious animal-crayon artist.  I laughed so hard I could barely eat my froyo hahaha.  After that he had to drive home, but it was a really fun visit!  He even brought me presents....a coloring book and a box of Hello Panda snacks hahahahaha, both of which are coming in handy.  The other day at drumline I was eating a Hello Panda pouch, and this girl comes up to me and says "Sorry, but can I just say, you are really asian." Can't deny that haha. Oh so an anecdote:  Once a long time ago I wanted to melt the chocolate on the inside of the Hello Panda crackers so I stuck the little pouch into the microwave.....the pouch is made of aluminum. Lol, it exploded and the pouch was bubbling when I sprinted to the microwave to turn it off. Bubbly metal, yum. You know what else is yum? Hotpot. And on that note, good night!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Artsy Is My Middle Name, What's Yours?

Oh my god I am so artsy I can barely stand it. Lol jk I just wanted to try out this blogger app on my iPhone :) the one of my parents was taken on my cell, the others are pics from china that I recently found for an art project! Just thought I'd post a few. I love how this thing automatically capitalizes my I's for me! Yes I am that lazy. So I know I still haven't blogged about Christmas break, sorry! Actually, who am I even apologizing to? Oh right, my adoring fans :) haha but all jokes aside, I seriously need to get on that. But ugh what a busy week... The band performs again on Friday! I still have to learn a new song, crap. It's "Lonely Boy" by the Black Keys! I think it makes us hipster, but if I knew for sure, it wouldn't be hipster, ha. Okay time to go study for a hopeless chem test! Nighty night!
In Xi'an! Near Muslim Street (It was cool seeing so many chinese-muslims! And the food was really good)
In the neighborhood around where my grandma used to live, see the chicken?
Bridge that lights up near where my other grandma lives! 

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Limbless

Bye maple tree :(
Today I woke up to the loud hum of machines outside my window.  In my sleepy state, I didn't even think twice about it and got up to take my shower. At lunch my parents were talking about the tree that was being cut down, and I was like "wait, WHAT?" I ran to look outside, and sure enough the giant tree in our front yard was already limbless. When I demanded to know why our tree was being cut down, my dad merely said, "why not?" His only few reasons were that it was an "eyes-sore" (since a big branch split off during the storm a few months ago) and that the roots were messing up the lawn.  At that point I was like shooting fire out of my mouth; I was so mad! Neither of them even bothered to ask me ahead of time whether we should cut down this perfectly healthy tree or not. Well, I guess it was smart of them because they knew I would've said no way, but still, I'm not 7, I'm 17, and I should be aware of big decisions like this before they happen (or don't happen).  On the bright side, my mom already regrets cutting it down, and she gave me permission to plant a new tree once spring comes.  It was a little embarrassing though, because one of the neighbors came over to see it, and my mom decided to tell her that I was extremely upset about the tree.  And then we had to talk about it some more and I was on the verge of tears! Oh man.  I wonder if I should plant another maple?

Grinding up my tree

Cutting down the crab-apple (this one was rotten on the inside though)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Panda Module

Haven't blogged in a while so I decided to post a quickie.  These are all pictures I took with my....IPHONE. Yes, that's right, I upgraded from crappy 4 year old nokia to an iPhone :) I'm gonna miss the nokia though :( It served me well.  When the lady at the apple store made fun of my old phone, I actually got kind of defensive lol. Anyway, I will post all about the end of my break tomorrow or something, so for the moment, just enjoy these random pictures. 

Boxes on my high school's roof lmao "Panda Module"
Most recent art homework. Self portrait in Roy Lichenstein's pop art style - in progress !
Took goddamn forever....I realized at the end that it looks like i'm naked, but it was 3 am so I was like screw it. Hahaha

I am cool.
My friend is cool.