Sparks Fly

Damn, I can't believe February is over already! Time sure flies by. While I was slacking off school work this past month, I actually did quite a bit of stuff. I'm in four ADT dances and three DT dances this semester! I have rehearsal everyday except for tuesdays which really breaks up the monotony around here.  Being a choreographer is really fun! Although, I realized that dancing and counting out loud is extremely tiring. By the end of a rep, I'm gasping for breath...or maybe I'm just mega out of shape.  Also, IM billiards should be starting soon and I am very much looking forward to it! I seriously gotta get some practice in cuz I want our team to win this year >:). There was a guy I played last year, who destroyed me the first round, led like mad the second round before losing on purpose just so he could play a third game with me. He was such a jerk and I swear to god I will get better and destroy him this year. 

Also I've decided to apply to a few animation studios in Japan for the summer! Ha, crazy I know, but it's worth a try.  I got accepted to an architecture studio in Shibuya, Tokyo, but unfortunately can't go because they refuse to cover any expenses regarding travel/housing/stipend and the program I'm applying through for funding can't cover all of my costs this year. So sad. 

Hehe whoops, I should probably do my work and then go to sleep.  I pulled an all-nighter in studio the other day, and now I'm borderline sick.  Obsessively intaking vitamin C in hopes of it performing some sort of magic.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures :)

Picture with Gene Shinozaki, this awesome beatboxer that performed at the CSC banquet.  How do all those sounds come from one person? Crazy. Yuta planking on a pingpong table because he lost a game. Selfies at adt retreat and at CSC banquet! On the bridge enroute to Pinkberry for free froyo day! Minerva making a disgusting face at Pinkberry. 

Food pix, how could I not? Notice the decline in quality since January (aka meal plan started). CSC banquet food, chicken teriyaki, Massaman curry (!!!!), Viet curry (with guest appearance by Eunice), Tokyo Banana (a sort of banana-flavored Japanese Twinkie that my Japanese teacher gave me), and...Big Tom with a Big Whooper.

Walking to Blick's with Eunice in the snow (got a free sketchbook),  Jen and her big Snookie hair, shot glass of weird squishy gel things (Oh my god Jennifer was obsessed with them. She brought a bunch of them home with her and even ordered more online hahaha), ADT retreat, ADT auditions, and a postcard I received from Brazil!! (from Eunice)

Dressed up for ZBT soiree (aka was super antisocial and just stuffed my face with delicious desserts), Valentine's day chocolate! Birthday present from my ATS big, Sally <3 It's this awesome doodle book since she knows I like to draw (also how awesome is that self-drawn card?) Made a mold of my hand in plaster and casted a wax replica.  Dabin performing at ATS Lunar Banquet with the Taekwondo club! We cheered very loudly for her...I think she was embarrassed. Random picture of me and Jenn laughing at something. Watching a metal-working demonstration- check out those sparks!! And the middle picture is Jenn rejoicing in a field of snow at 2 am. 

Dreamer

When I was younger, I would always dream up crazy futures for myself.  I was convinced I could become anything I wanted to be.  I will be a famous artist.  I will travel the world.  I will make a difference.  I will only do what I love and not settle for anything less.  My friends would laugh and jokingly tell me to get my head out of the clouds.  My parents tolerated my naive outlook, but lightly pulled me back to reality.  But as I got older, things changed.  I realized that becoming an artist was impractical and financially unstable.  I convinced myself I wasn't good enough anyway.  I didn't apply to art school. I was conflicted, but in the end I decided that the best thing I could do for myself and for my parents was to enter a prestigious school (hello stereotypes).  So I spent less time drawing and more time cramming for SATs, APs, and worrying about my GPA.  For my major, we compromised with architecture.  I don't want to make it seem like my parents chose it for me, but it was strongly encouraged, and eventually I reasoned with myself that it was a pretty cool field.  It was close enough to art right? There was also minimal physics involved.  Perfect, two things I excelled at in high school, and together they'd land me a solid degree and a stable job upon graduation.  What more could I want?  But at the same time, I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I hadn't worried so much about everything and threw myself whole heartedly into my art instead of half-assing things like I always do.  Maybe I would've broken my parents hearts.  Maybe I'd be in art school right now, regretting everything and wishing I had gone to a different school.  Maybe I'd end up leeching off my parents until I got married.  Maybe I'd have to work weird part-time jobs and hate myself for fucking everything up.  Or maybe I'd be happier.  Maybe I could've really made it.  I guess it's impossible to know for sure, but what I do know is that I spend way too much time questioning everything I do in my life right now.  How much of this is actually going to matter to me after I graduate? What will I take away from these experiences? Am I really just trading in 4 years of my life and hundred of thousands of my parents hard earned money for a measly piece of paper that might land me a nice paying job? What if I don't even like the job? What if I don't even get a job and it was all for nothing....

I know I'm greedy. I want happiness and success and love and fulfillment without the pain or failure or doubt or loneliness.  I look at the people around me who are so full of motivation and life; who look so sure of themselves, and I am envious of them.  But at the same time I'm not stupid; I know that on the inside they are probably just like me to some degree.  And then I think of the facade I put on for everyone else.  My friends probably think I love architecture, that I'm excelling in my classes, and although slightly sleep deprived, and quite lazy, I'm happy. And to be fair, on some days those are all true, but on many other days I just want to sleep until everything goes away.  On those days I feel inferior, frustrated, confused, and so full of self-doubt.  I know I can do better.  I used to be extremely stubborn about the quality of work I created.  I would spend hours making my visions come to life, never taking short cuts to save time.  It was a trait that drove my parents mad, but it was something I was proud of. But these days I feel like I've lost that part of me.  I constantly bullshit my projects, my diagrams, my work, everything.  Sure, my professors give me A's, but I know I'm cheating myself and I have the ability do so much better.  My friend told me my expectations for myself are just too high. My parents tell me if it bothers me, then I should just fix it.  But how do I fix it- I don't understand.  Can someone tell me? Somehow I feel so lost right now.

Twenty Lanterns for Twenty Years

TWENTY.  Damn that's a big number.  When I was a little kid, twenty felt like such a long way to go. I thought that by the time I reached it, I'd be cool, tall, and mature, but honestly I still feel like a little kid (and don't exactly look that much older either -_-).  Nonetheless, I had a blast celebrating with friends and family over the weekend! I was only home for less than two days, but it was definitely worth it. As soon as I got home, my sister excitedly directed me to my room where my family had made and strung twenty lanterns across my room with "Happy 20th Birthday" written on them.  It was so cute I almost cried lol.  For Chinese New Year we did our traditional dumpling making from scratch.  My dad is very proud of his dumpling making skills. Apparently when you self-make the peels, you're supposed to leave a thicker patch in the middle called the "heart" of the peel.  When they're made by machines, they're completely even.  Somehow I thought that it was so deep that human made ones have hearts and machine-made ones don't.... my dad told me I was stupid. After stuffing our faces, we watched Despicable Me 2 together! My mom kept falling asleep during it, but my sister would nudge her awake every time lol....poor mom.  When we had sufficiently digested, it was CAKE TIME. While blowing out the candles, it soon became clear that there was something wrong.  The candles would relight themselves brighter and brighter, and there were sparks going off everywhere.  The whole kitchen was filled with smoke lmao.  Turns out that my mom bought me prank candles....by accident hahahaha.  My dad turn on the fan and my whole family was gathered around the cake huffing our brains out and choking on smoke.  It was kind of awesome. The next morning we went out for sum delicious dim sum (ha I never get tired of that joke), and before long I was en route to the bus station!

Freaking BoltBus is a fucking tank and I got to Boston in less than 4 hours! Record time. That night we went out for some quality karaoke~ We sang songs we knew.  We sang songs we didn't know. We didn't give a shit and it was great. I practically sounded like Celine Dion.  One of my friends was particularly outgoing that night, which was pretty awesome until she suddenly got really bad. It was kind of scary actually and she had to spend the night at the hospital, but thank god she's okay.  Randi is happy to supply all the parts she doesn't remember...^^;

Last night we went out to Wagamama for dinner! I got chicken katsu curry...mmmmm.  Honestly they could have given me shit curry and I would've loved it just because it's curry.  When we got back, my friends brought out a very pretty asian cake (with 24 candles cuz they wanted to use the whole pack) and a very nice card (a Valentine's day card with a giant trumpet on it that said "I want to blow your horn"). I loved both.  When I got back to my dorm, my other friend gave me a plate of fruit tarts that he'd made! They were beautifully delicious. I'm so lucky to have such loving friends and family <3 Now I'm going to stop before I burst into tears in the student center....

Today marked the first day of the spring semester- I only had one class so far, but I'm already excited for this semester.  In my one class (intro to visual arts for arch majors) we spent a long time discussing performance art and watched some freaky videos.  There was one with a naked woman who continuously ran into a pillar, one with a woman who plastered her leg into a bucket and spent the whole time trying to free herself with a hammer, and one with a woman who wore super long finger extensions and walked back and forth scraping the walls. It was.....fascinating (terrifying?). Then I grabbed come Micky D's with Eunice and settled down at the student center to bang out this blogpost while drinking bubble tea (except now it's been 3 hours and I keep getting distracted).  Wooo!

Delicious dinner, dumpling making, posing with cake, posing with dough, laughing and choking on smoke, beautiful cake <3, and LANTERNS.

Wagamama, en route to karaoke, at karaoke!

Looking at cake, looking at card, 24 melted candles, cutting cake, and fruit tarts <3

Year of the Unicorn

Whoops, get ready for another picture-heavy post!  

So IAP (our winter session)  is officially over- it was actually quite busy between meeting new people, playing a lot of pool and badminton, eating out, going places, and occasionally attempting to work. I ended up dropping both Java and Python - which I sort of hate myself for giving up on, but felt a lot better when I didn't have to worry about it.  I also participated in a web programming competition with Minerva, Weiwei, and Kevin this past month. Also didn't try nearly hard enough, also sort of hate myself for that (wow, so much self hatred.) Weiwei basically ended up coding the majority of the website, and I felt prettttty guilty about that (sorry weiwei!!). But I'm also very impressed that he was able to do that on his own! He has some pretty amazing self-motivation.

Anyway, this past weekend I went home for Chinese New Year! I basically spent the last couple days stuffing my face with delicious food and reveling in the wonderful feeling of being home. (More details in next post when I upload pics to go along) I'm currently sitting in a bus bound for Boston - and looking forward to karaoke tonight! On to the pictures~ 

I call this the Ed Collage. "Why?" you ask? Because he is in every single damn picture. A couple weeks ago, Ed came up to Boston to visit! We ate lots of good food, played some pool (he won and I had to pay for his brunch T_T), and went to Jay Z's Magna Carter World Tour! I wasn't very familiar with his lyrics, but still had a blast. Near the end, he does this thing where he just walks around the stage and calls out random audience members. He told this one guy he liked his salmon shirt and khaki pants. lol. 

Young Forever! At first the whole stadium was dark, and then slowly it completely lit up with people's phone lights.  It was AMAZING.  From up on the balcony I felt like I was surrounded by stars. At the end, the music dropped out and the whole crowd sang together- also pretty amazing haha

Of course, here's the food post. Korean BBQ chicken and side dishes courtesy of a new friend (I beat her in pingpong so she bought me dinner lmao) Sushi buffet with ADT,  home-cooked goodness, cozy pizza lunch at Cosi (ha.), delicious sandwich from Cafe Luna (but I forget what was in it), came home one night to find a plate of spring rolls in my room! eggplant in chinatown, and Japanese curry with friends~

At an ATS food event! We had a contest to see who could make the best Dabin onigiri haha.  Jenn officially moved into my room and we decided to paint the walls this beautiful shade of blue! It makes me happy to stare at it sometimes lol. Watched my friends play couple badminton...cute. Also kevin doing a handstand on the pool table. Sometimes I just don't understand.

There was a disgusting amount of snacks and trash on that table, but it's kind of hard to see in the picture lol. The silk pavilion at the media lab, bubble tea in chinatown <3, the most delicious quesadillas I've ever consumed, LIFE, making rice balls, Ed's beautiful 3D masterpiece of a bear eating chicken, JAYZ, No Assing Through.

Surprise candy in my mailbox (thanks Sally ^^), learning how to body roll (?), Spent forever peeling those chestnuts, PF Chang's, Year of the Unicorn oh my god, table piled with deliciousness @_@, plate piled with deliciousness @_@, and some Pinkberry even though it was freezing outside.

In other news, today as I was packing to go back to school, my sister unearthed the key to my old diary! It has entries from 2001-2009...and I laughed my ass off reading it. I re-lived my first crush, my first sleepover, and many other memories I had all but forgotten about. It also made me feel mad old, especially since I'm turning 20 in less than 6 hours! Damn.

Anyway, my bus is about to arrive, better pack up and get ready! I'll post all about my birthday weekend in a few days :)