Cloudscape

"I think you should do what you want to do. Life is once. Do your favourite thing in your life time."

"It's such a tough thing, balancing what you want with what you feel like you should owe to others." 

I've been dreaming again. Can you tell?

Choosing Happiness

Ah, blogging from the wonderful comfort of my bed at home. Actually, I've been kicked out of my old room by Kaykay who is inheriting it, so instead I've been placed in the small bedroom (which coincidentally has a nicer mattress LOL.) 

Anyway, after leaving Chicago, I spent 3 wonderful weeks back in Boston which flew by incredibly quickly.  There was a lot happening, and I felt pretty energized most days of the week.  Worked during the day, caught up with a few friends I hadn't seen in a while, cooked dinner with Khanh at night (as you will see from below haha), made time to do art, went to some workshops (went to a UPro workshop and have mostly made up my mind to audition for them in the fall!), and got pretty consistent quality sleep. (Note to self - plzplzplz get sleep during the school year plz @__@. It just makes everything better) I love being back in Cambridge, but mentally preparing myself for the school year is bringing with it some underlying anxiety in terms of so many different things. Mixed feelings everywhere - excitement, apprehension, fear, anticipation. But the good news is that I feel increasingly more comfortable in my own skin...and I think I'm dealing with all the weird stress pretty well. The secret weapon is sleep. I've also been reading some articles recently that've really got me thinking about my outlook on life. Yes, it's a little cringe and cheesy, but I've really been taking the whole "happiness is a choice" thing more and more seriously. Sure we've all heard it, maybe nodded in absentminded agreement, and then abruptly dismissed it from our thoughts. But I think it's really worth revisiting.

Came back to Boston for some quality team bonding (hello delicious food and 3 hours of karaoke) and some info sessions at nearby apartment complexes. Initiating conversation is so awkward. Good thing we had Milano cookies to draw people in... until a bunch of kids came and literally took 25+ cookies. 

Promo materials! That's right, we saved over $400 bucks on printing costs by doing it ourselves and cutting all 1000+ copies. Ayyy....

KHANH with our pretty food. And a close up of this really good shrimp gumbo curry stuff she made since I didn't have 6 pictures to fill up this collage :'(

Randi comes home! She's also started cooking for us too~ They grow up so fast :')
More pics of friends and food ^^ Maybe I should start a separate blog just to house all my friends+food pics. Could be an interesting motif....

Ummpphhff delicious green tea mochi stuffed with red bean milk pop pieces. We folded them into triangles, kyoto style!

Casual brunch. Don't ask me why I felt the need to have this be a stand-alone image. Y'all probably have figured out that I have an intense weakness for arial-shots of cute food.

Went to Blicks with Khanh and made it rain cash T_T bye-bye money. But look at how
beautiful our new canvases are! I've started painting my first painting in...3 years, and
it's definitely a struggle, but I'm slowly starting to get the hang on it! Expect pics in future blogs.

Ah yes, more arial-cute-food-pics. This time with special guest Lychee Juice. 

Here's a close-up of the egg that starred in the previous pic incase you couldn't get enough.

Chicken katsu at Go-go Curry with Randi/Taibo/Will. Berry Line at Harvard Square with Ktian on a 3-4 mile trek to go home after eating ramen. Definitely an interesting froyo joint - I got honey lavender...probably will get the original next time haha but it was pretty novel. Made some lava eggs - lol idk why I am so obsessed with taking pictures of eggs. They are just so goddamn photogenic. Also meat. I wish I were that photogenic. Haha but jokes aside (jokes it's not a  joke) the meat is from a pretty good Shabu place I went to with Eric this last weekend to celebrate his return to Boston!

Chill tea steeper. I love looking at random cute shit like that. Me looking like a fucking samurai while waiting for my hair to bleach. Rodd climbing random things like always. Apparently he used to do parkour! Two random dudes in the infinite giving away free floppy disks - weirdest encounter I had all day cuz they wouldn't tell me why they were giving them away and they even had an email sign-up list...but they told me they hadn't decided what the email list was for yet.

Had the urge to get my hair dyed purple for the past couple of weeks so I decided to just go and do it. Crying from my loss of $200 (didn't realize it'd be nearly that expensive until it was time to pay...) but hopefully it's worth. Currently still bleeding purple all over my tub whenever I shower, but we'll see how the final result looks in about a week! Weeee

Lol this picture is actually not that beautiful in terms of color or composition or anything....but yay Eric is back in Boston!

Still Dreaming

I've been doing a lot of thinking these past few days. And dreaming. More of the same-old, but I thought I'd blog about it anyway.  I'm officially going to be starting my senior year here at MIT in only a few weeks, and although in the short term that means thinking about my thesis, getting excited about dance, and having a last hurrah with my friends, in the long term it means something a bit scarier (hard to imagine something scarier than a thesis though haha).  It means really taking a look at myself and figuring out what I want to do with the next chapter of my life (I was about to say the rest of my life, but that sounded a little too dramatic).  Yes, it's time for the job hunt.  Or is it? I think I'd really enjoy working at some sort of design firm, but at the same time, I'm hungry for more.  Not more money (because lets be honest, I probably won't be making much no matter what), but more fulfillment. I want to see the world, and I want to put it in sketchbooks and on canvases.  I don't know if I even have close to the amount of talent needed for that, but when I start to think that way, I want to kick myself. What an easy way out! Am I a coward? Maybe. Actually, probably. Where is that passion for art that I used to have? At the back of my brain constantly poking me but afraid to come back out.  When my parents are paying for me to attend college at a top tier tech school, it seems like such a slap to their face for me to want to run around with some pencils and paintbrushes. So naive. You'd think that after so many years, I would have grown up. Maybe sparked a real deep-seated interest in something more...progressive. Modern design, 3D animation and CGI (which admittedly I am pretty interested in), theory and criticism. But I'm still the 9-year-old Sonya doodling and dreaming of becoming an artist. Though if I want to make that a reality, I really need to get my shit together. I won't know if it's possible or not until I dive in head-first. Okay, so yeah, I suppose it is scarier than a thesis after all.

Green Glass River Bend

Another long absence since my last blog post. Classic.  In that time I went to Chicago for about four weeks and lived with Eric at his apartment. To be honest, before I left Boston, I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing.  Taking myself away from my friends and the familiarity of Boston to live with my boyfriend in a different city? But thankfully, it was far from the experience I was worried it might be. I had a lot of fun exploring the city, and working in different locations everyday (but mostly Panera, my most dependable source of wifi and comfortable booths <3). Plus, weilian would often get out of work around 5pm and sit with me while I finished up my work for the day, often accompanied by some bubble tea from Vivi's (the amount of money I spent on bubble tea last month is probably not okay.) At night we'd chill (sometimes with Eunice and Alex (Eric's friend from Traders who eats plain greek yogurt and egg whites for dinner...no carb life is real)), either cook dinner or eat out (Chicago has some mad good food) and sometimes watch movies or go karaoke-ing. Speaking of which, I watched some really good movies over the last couple weeks! Finally saw Fight Club which is such an old classic but somehow I never got around to it. Also watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I would highly recommend (cinematography was beautiful and quirky), as well as Minority Report (which gave me a slight mind-fuck, but Eric told me I was probably over-analyzing it) and The Truth About Cats and Dogs (an old rom com). The last one we watched was Anchorman.  Incredibly, impressively stupid but pretty entertaining (oh and did I mention stupid?) Oh and since we talking stupid, the absolute dumbest thing I did last month was getting hooked on an iPad game called Cow Evolution. Basically you cultivate cows and can unlock higher level cows but combining lower level cows. By harvesting their poop, you make money (some of the higher lvl cows poops are worth hundreds of thousands of coins @__@) In short, it's a game that requires zero intellect or skill, but we played it religiously to unlock new cows and buy cute hats for our existing cows. Looking back, I really cannot believe the amount of time I spend dragging cows...but if I had the iPad with me now, I would probably continue playing in a big way. Oh man. 

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures (like, a lot) over the last month, so I'm gonna hand it over to the collages and captions now :)

Chicago O'Hare airport after 4 hours of delays in Boston weeee

Lobby installation in the John Hancock building- It's hard to see from this photo, but the installation is actually only half of a sphere, and the top is a mirror to make it look like a full sphere!

Drinks with Eunice at the Signature Room in the Hancock Tower! We felt so fancy sitting there overlooking the city with cocktails in-hand, but realtalk - the cocktails weren't that great. Had a lot of fun catching up with Eunice tho :)

Too many options at Joyyee @__@

Friends and food! Featuring a lot of asian food, asian drinks, and asian friends lol. 

Jesus lord those buns were beautiful and delicious. Had sum dim sum (never gets old) the first weekend in Chicago - was pretty solid! But let's talk about those eggs. Sweet god they were amazing. Soft boiled to perfection and seasoned just right. When I went home I tried to make them myself lol. I actually got them to taste quite good! But they were ugly as fuck so I didn't include any photo evidence. 

DIMSUM. All you can eat sushi @__@. Ramen at Oistar! (Literally the most delicious Chashu I've ever tasted) and some quality Chicago deep dish pizza! It was my first time eating it and I quite enjoyed it...but still loyal to NY style thin crust :P

UNF. Strings Ramen (favorite ramen place I hit up in Chicago hands down), Chicken and waffles from Meli Cafe. Fu ji fei pian (uh definitely spelled that wrong) from this balling Chinese place called Lao Si Chuan. Their food is on point. Bacon Chicken omelette from Meli as well! That was a damn good meal. 

Some of my cute breakfasts, and Frank the kangaroo that Eric got me from his adventures in Australia. The first morning I woke up, I rolled over and saw him laying on the pillow looking at me :3 what a cute little dude...except eric always uses him to hump my arm. -__-

Potsticker flower

Brunch for two

The view from the top of the Hancock Tower!

Seeing the bean for the first time!

Millenium park at night @__@

Cool public art / lights and some lanterns from Strings Ramen hehe

Merry-go-around at Navy Pier

The night Eric and I walked around the city and did absolutely nothing for hours. In the end we went to target, bought blank notebooks and sketched in the large (deserted) amphitheater at Millennium Park. :) It was a really relaxing evening and I even got to take a picture of the Bean with literally zero people around. Success.

Getting cultured at the Art Institute of Chicago! The one in the top right is pretty interesting because everything is painted roughly except for the face of the fallen jockey which is delicately detailed. Apparently it was to pay homage to the artist's deceased brother :\ 

My favorite exhibit at the Art Institute! The Ando gallery. The room is dim with rows of polished rectangular wooden pillars and a curved wooden bench. The only light comes from the display case that sort of cuts into the wall. It was also so quiet! When we were in that space, I was overcome with the feeling that I couldn't (and shouldn't?) make noise. 

Deliciously delicious brunch at Meli Cafe. They use watermelon in a lot of their smoothies which I thought was pretty unique. Definitely gonna try making some watermelon-based smoothies this year >:D A giant bubble gun blowing moose (yes that's a truck in the left corner for scale) Clean Slate Riesling - Eric was obsessed. I just thought it was funny that it came with a "slate coaster" aka there was a piece of rock attached to the bottle lmao. Bottom pic is of the four of us at karaoke in Chinatown! Nothing like kicking back after work and unleashing stress by belting out songs way out of my vocal range.

Went on the famous Chicago Architecture Boat Tour! Chicago has some really diverse architecture. To be honest, I zoned out and didn't really pay that much attention to the tour guide cuz I was too busy taking pictures and ogling at the view from the boat. Oops. But yeah here are a few of my favorite buildings from the tour! I particularly really like the green one in the top right. Apparently the curvature follows the form of the river that passes in front of it. So elegant @_@

Exploring the beautiful city with this cutie <3 But actually jesus lord we walked a lot a lot.

One of my favorite shots I managed to take on the Architecture tour! It was the opposite direction of all the bright buildings, but when I saw it I was sort of struck by its quiet beauty. The glowing lights, the moon above, and just everything @__@ I am so bad at expressing myself haha, but basically I really like this picture. It has such a modest and peaceful feeling to it!  I only wish that it wasn't so grainy. But eh, iPhone camera in dim light, I'll take what I can get. 

A really really good day.  I spent all day not being able to work cuz I was so excited to go to Mr. Son Sung Deuk's workshop! He is the choreographer for BTS and I fan-girled harder than I have ever fan-girled in my life. Especially since BTS was basically the first group I really got hooked on, in terms of dance and music. Being able to learn first hand from their choreographer was a really crazy opportunity for me. Anyway, learned Bulletproof pt. 2 form the man himself (pinch me I still can't get over it) and then met up with Eric and Weilian for some quality gyukaku. Meeting one of my heroes and eating delicious japanese BBQ in one day? I am a very lucky girl. @__@

At Navy Pier. Beautiful view from the Ferris Wheel! Weilian clearly looking like he's enjoying himself.

Okay don't even get me started on this meal @__@ Jk I want to talk about it. On my last night in Chicago, we went to go check out this place called Union Sushi and BBQ.  It was basically fusion Japanese food, and some of our food was really fucking delicious. First the sliders. I mean, just LOOK at them. There was curry crab cake, a beef + quail egg, and bbq. I honestly could've just order several boxes of these and eaten them all night long. But good thing I didn't or else I wouldn't have had room for the delicious sushi. My favorite was the Hokkaido roll which I unfortunately didn't include in this collage, but there was seared scallop in it @__@. For dessert, we ordered a pumpkin mochi cake... Oh man. The inside had a sort of ice-cream like texture, the outside was firm pumpkin mochi, and it was topped with caramel and some sort of toffee brittle. The fact that this caption is so long speaks for how much I enjoyed that meal. But maybe it was also because it was my last night so it tasted extra good. 

This picture looks posed as fuck but I swear it was actually a candid! Again I'm a sucker for small boats floating in the water, moonlight, and I guess having eric in the picture doesn't hurt too much :P

One last picture with the beautiful Chicago night skyline <3 (also check it out, I actually look like I have boobs in this picture. Exciting!)

A clear day for my flight back to Boston! On the colorful river during the Architecture cruise. Standing at the exit of the Red Line, watching the rain and waiting for it to lighten up.

Smooth(ie) Wine

Oh man, another month has passed by again, and now we are more than half way done with July! Summer is moving way too fast for me to keep up with @__@ Ate food and hung out with a few different friends I haven't really seen in a while, did work, and danced ALOT.  A couple weekends ago, Minerva, Khanh, and I decided on a whim to make a kpop cover video for a contest! First place gets tickets to Koreaaaaa aaayyy. We decided on songs, made the music cut, learned all the dances, and filmed in three days. 18 songs in 7 minutes. @__@ It was ridiculously tiring, but also really fun! I definitely want to make more dance vids in the future wheeee

I'm currently in Chicago actually, but I'll save that for the next blog post. My backlog of collages are too intense and I think I'd cry if I actually tried to cover everything that's happened since the last time I blogged.  So I think I'll keep this post purely Boston :) Photos and captions legggooo

My beautiful attempt at making tamagoyaki @__@ Mine just tasted like normal egg, but it still looks so pretty~

Grabbing food with Nolan, Brian, and Matt when they came to visit! Ramen with the boss-man during a work day. Last row was from grabbing sushi and fried ice cream with Cecile at Fuji in Kendall!

The team hard at work. Lol jk we went bowling and then played pool. Beautiful view from the architecture meeting spaces that we highjacked as our temporary office. Cute cards that we passed out. And a green tea frappacino. 

Kayaking with the NP frans - really tiring even though I barely paddled lol.  Random food pictures from random food outings. Went on a girl date with Sophie for some quality ramen and ice cream :) the Just Baguette team!

Our colorful dinners <3 I really miss cooking and eating with them T__T

Cecile's mouthwatering pot stickers @__@ Botton left is homemade banana-based-blackberry ice cream a la Randi. Rest is from eating out with Randi and Khanh at Newberry!

YES BEAUTIFUL MEAT.  Had all-you-can-eat KBBQ with Randi and Khanh at Gyukaku to celebrate July 4th! 

Khanh being arguably more anal about item placement than I am while trying to take a picture of her tea. Beautiful rainbow ribbons woven along the sidewalk. Trying to bait some cute birds that were too smart for us. Last night in Boston before coming to Chicago! Cooked all my favorite things to eat and ate with my attractive friends. <3