"We Are Infinite"

Woooo guess who's on an airplane from Beijing bound for Yichang? That's right, this kid. Good guess. Check me out, blogging only a week after my last post. Surprised? I am. Anyway, a quick update:


Diner date with Courtney! 1/5/2013

Saturday was the last day before we left for China, and holy balls was it a busy one. Woke up early (but still too late) for brunch with Courtney at the dinner. Ordered a mozzarella grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. So. Good.  It was nice to catch up with her since we'd barely seen each other over the break, and she even said that she might start a picture blog…oho I really hope so! After that I dragged Nicole away from her internship apps (sorry nicole!) to go shopping for my cousin's gift. My mom ended up hating the present, so I had to go out and buy something else anyway. Boo. That pretty much brings us to dinner, which was good ol' home cooking. Packed like a maniac and met up with Emma for some DD and uke playing. It was good to see her too since I'd only seen her once all break even though she lives right next to me. Went out again after that for some Sonic with Nolan, Brian, and Nicole. Nolan decided that he wanted to see what lay in the unknown, so he kept driving. Brian was convinced there'd be a Neverland at the end. I don't understand him sometimes. Unfortunately, we never found out since it was already past midnight and I was already late. So we turned back, but Nolan thought that we should take a short cut, which turned out to be a long cut (surprise), and Brian thought it'd be a great idea to tell scary urban legends. Ugh, it's making me shiver just thinking about it. Soon we arrived home, and after a round of hugs, I drove home to pack more. It's seriously weird thinking that I probably won't see most people again until summer.
 

Selfies in the airport/airplane 1/6/2013

Sunday was airplane day! Oh dear lord 14 hours in the air is not my ideal way to spend time, but luckily they had little TVs. I watched movies until my eyes burned, and then I watched some more.  The first one I saw was Pitch Perfect (aka Bitch Perfect), which was your typical feel-good-success-story chick flick. I really enjoy those for some reason, even though they're mad predictable.  Next was Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was both quirky and touching at the same time.  The title of this post actually came from the end when Charlie's standing in the back of the pickup truck going through the tunnel (or at least that's where I think I got it from). After that my eyes were already starting to burn, but I barreled onward with Recall. Kind of very predictable in a lame way, but the special effects were still pretty cool, especially "the drop" which is a 17 minute (12?) journey through the center of the earth from australia to europe. Kind of ridiculous at the same time though. Then I watched Brave, and loved it. Disney & Pixar never fail to amaze me with their animations. Next up was the Avengers which I've been told to watch a billion times, so I did, but wasn't particularly hooked by it.  Actually I never finished it since we had to land, and I wasn't really paying attention for any of it….okay maybe I need to re-watch it lol. After customs and luggage shenanigans, we were on our way to the hotel.  The sun was bright but fighting to stay visible through the thick grey atmosphere.  My mom marveled at how Beijing had a sun but no sky. It was actually kind of depressing to think about. We arrived at our hotel which honestly looked like a giant green box, I finally lost my personal battle with the airplane food (looks even worse the second time around), and we went out to grab some real food for dinner. Once we got back, we all crashed. The end.

Nightmarket! (They sold spider, starfish, and termite shishkabobs wtf) 1/7/2013

So Tuesday Kaykay decided to wake up at 3 am. Wonderful. I finally dragged my body out of bed at around 5 for a beef-la-mien breakfast. Yum. All the people in the shop stared at us while my sister blabbed on loudly in English.  Then we braved the winds as we walked throughout Gugong (the Forbidden City). It was gorgeous but so ridiculously cold. Regardless I managed to take a billion pictures. That night we went to the Red Theatre to watch a shaolinggongfu show which was freaking awesome. Besides for the really intense fighting moves, I was pretty much obsessed with the little boys that could do back flips across the stage using their heads. That night we ate baozhi at goubuni which is a famous baozhi place according to my mom. Boy do they do baozhi right.

Furry handwarmers? Check. Pumpkin juice? Check. 1/8/2013



CCTV tower!

Woke up early again (thanks kaykay) and this time went out and bought breakfast as we walked along to tian'anmen where we spammed pictures. Then we took the subway (first time taking it in china!) to the CCTV tower which is the 9th highest in the world. After touring around, sending my dad a postcard, and spamming more pictures, we ate lunch in their revolving restaurant which had an amazing view of Beijing. It's alarming to look out and see skyscrapers and apartment complexes in all directions as far as the eye can see. I also used their binoculars and watched some people take a stroll across a lake that was frozen solid. After stuffing ourselves silly (btw pear fanta is fantastic), we visited the aquarium. Kind of depressing to see so many fish stuck in such little tanks. There were also penguins and seals, which was both awesome and awful. We saw a crazy circus performance that night.  Tacky costumes, but mad talent. The super flexible girls made my stomach turn, and the five simultaneous motorcycles in the big metal ball cage had me really nervous lol. Ate dinner at a little place across the street that had some boss eggplant.

Those bottles are attached to sticks, and you can pay to feed the fish with them lol. 1/9/2013

Currrly hair! Kind of hard to see, but you get the idea. 1/11/2013

Fast forward another plane ride, and we're in Yichang! Kicked off our home-coming with a delicious meal prepared by my aunt who is an amazing cook. The next day I went with eryi to get my hair permed! Holy balls was it a long painful process. After about an hour and a half I had to pee….but nope, still needed to wait another three and a half hours. In the end I made it with no bladder damage (at least I hope not) and a new Asian haircut. The people at the place struggled with my tenacious hair since it had never been dyed nor permed before, but my fabulous hairdresser (a dude) managed to pull it off. Still getting used to the whole having-curly-hair thing.

Food, people, and more food! Bottom middle is my aunt :) 1/9/2013 - 1/12/2013

1/12/2013

Yesterday we went to go visit my grandma and grandpa's grave at this beautiful cemetery that's on the side of a mountain. It was all very confusing for Kaykay who kept asking how grandma got from down here to "up there". We burned them some incense, money, and grandma's favorite books, poured them some wine, told them our prayers, and trudged back down the mountain.  Ate lunch on the 8th floor of a giant mall where we saw the cutest baby getting carted around in a basket-pack. Today we visited my dad's side of the family. My grandparent's place was mad cold since they don't believe in using the heater in the middle of winter (even though they have one…go figure). So instead we all huddled around a couple of glowing logs in the dark, chatting with our very visible breath.  We ate at a fancy place downtown with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin who practically studies every second of her life. Seriously. She lives at her high school, and they have class every day. People in China study so incredibly hard; it's kind of unnerving but amazing at the same time.

At the square by the river! Everything lights up at night 1/13/2013

Tonight after (another delicious) dinner we went to go walk by the river park. At night everything lights up and people come from all around to play, dance, and sing. My sister really got a kick out of the dancing groups, and my mom enthusiastically joined in (oh the horror). Actually, I can't really be embarrassed since I learned a couple of steps too….On the way back we passed by a group of badasses who were practicing whipping techniques with leather and chains…lmao first time I've seen that here.  Haha so much for a quick update, my bad. I'll try to be more succinct in the (very) near future! Good Night :)

"I Like My Raspberries Hairy"

Bye-bye brian's shoes. 1/1/2013

First post of 2013! Okay, I know my last post technically says "1/1/13" but I typed that up and submitted (or so I thought) on the 31st. No hard feelings though. Anyway....a new year! New goals, aspirations, resolutions, and the like. Even though its just like any other day, there's something about 1/1 that screams "new" at you.  It's kind of like a reset button, and lets you let go of the unfinished business of the past year….which could or could not be a good thing. Regardless, I'm looking forward to a great year! I know I've been neglecting this blog a bit since I've gone off to college, but I'll try my best to keep it going this year :) Also, I've decided to do the 365 project so unless I want to post 60 pictures in one go, I should probably update about once a week haha.

Kicked off the new year with some friends at Nolan's. After watching the countdown (with Psy!) we ventured upstairs where we made steaming cups of tea and played real-life mario party. AKA we stuck a water ballon on the kitchen faucet and took turns running around and turning on the water. Whoever the ballon explodes on gets eliminated and the next round begins. It sounds stupid but was actually really amusing in a stressful kind of way. I was pretty relieved when I finally got out on the 7th round lol. Then around 3 am we bundled up and headed out to the driveway where we symbolically lit Brian's old shitty sneakers on fire with olive oil and watched them get reduced to ashes. It was freezing outside but the fire was warm, although we had to stay clear of the black chemical-infused smoke that the shoes were giving off haha. Thomas kept joking that one of us was going to become a pyromaniac - "first come shoes, then buildings!" but he was the one who kept throwing little sticks and leaves in the fire with a little smile on his face…hmm….Once the shoes had given all they had left, we ventured inside and played mario party and brawl until  7. My eyes were on fire so I decided to get some sleep, but they were so goddamn loud that around 8:30 all the people who were trying to sleep just gave up and we decided to grab some breakfast at the Diner. The phrase "sleep terrorism" was coined, which couldn't be any more appropriate. Literally when Thomas had run out of things to say around 8, he picked up a random bag of pretzel chips and started to (loudly) read off the nutrition facts. Did you know that each chip has 10 calories? I wasn't aware until this year, but I'm so glad to finally know. I feel so informed. When I finally got home at 10, I crashed until 4:30 in the afternoon. For the rest of the day I finished sorting my high school papers and packed them away in a big box. Along the way I unearthed piles of old artwork which was a huge blast from the past. My drawings from ten years ago are faaar from pretty, trust me, but I got a kick out of shuffling through them. Which reminds me, I definitely plan on drawing more this year! My sketchbook barely has anything from 2012, how sad.

Chocolate cake, 7 Wonders, and Argo at Gabe's! 1/2/2013

Against my better judgement, had a steaming bowl of instant ramen for my first meal of Wednesday. For dinner I cooked some pork stir-fry with red peppers, onions, and this weird chinese vegetable that looks like a closed fist. No idea what it's called in english, but if you ever come across one, buy it, cook it, and enjoy it. I also made some daikon (chinese white radish) which I had a lot of fun slicing into perfect circles. Can't really explain it, but it was hilarious. Maybe I was just sleep deprived? Anyway…after dinner Nolan picked us up and we arrived at Gabriel's house for boardgames, chocolate cake, cranberry/seltzer beverages (thank you soda stream), and Argo ("Argo fuck yourself" solid quote from the movie). The film was pretty cool; it was about the Iranian hostage crisis, but at the same time I kind of wish we had watched Cloud Atlas. Regardless, I plan on watching it sometime soon - the trailer looked pretty kickass.

Spicy salmon yumyum 1/3/2013

Slept like a rock for thirteen and a half hours and woke up (to my horror) at 2:30. Played with Kaykay for a few hours, ran on the treadmill, and hurriedly took a shower before picking up some friends and heading to Nagoya for a sushi dinner.  What a terrible eating establishment….lol I kid, but it could've been better if they had hired me back over the summer, just saying. I did enjoy my spicy salmon with avocado though, as well as the gyoza. After a quick journey to Starbucks and some chitchat, the band congregated at dan's for some intense Taboo and CHOCOLATE.  Brian and I pulled a narrow victory over Daniel and "Big Tom". Also I think I began an affair with Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark….shhh don't tell Ferrero Rocher…   

Let the Carbohydrates Challenge begin! 1/4/2013

Today I woke up somewhat earlier so I could compete as a challenger in….the bread-bowl-with-a-side-of-bread challenge. The seven of us drove over to Panera and all ordered broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl with a side of bread. Nolan thought it was a brilliant idea to also order a sandwich, aka two more pieces of bread. Anyway, the point was just to finish all the carbs, so we were all winners, with Nolan securing the lead, followed closely by Nicole and Brian. I boarded the struggle bus and rode it slowly across the finish line, dead-last, but still a winner. It was pretty silly, but then again, so are most of the things we do. Tonight after dinner we headed over to Red Mang's where I constructed that masterpiece you see below.  I didn't think perfection was achievable, but I guess I was wrong. Ohoho. Afterwards we went to Nolan's and played some cards and video games, both of which got a little out of hand. My friends are pretty uh, interesting people, and I'm really going to miss having them around, although I certainly won't miss sleep terrorism. I don't know why I'm getting all emotional for; maybe it's because Thomas is leaving tomorrow, and I actually probably won't see him again for half a year. How strange. Anyway, time to sleep - big day tomorrow!

Ooof. The textures! The color scheme! The flavors! It's perfect.

Bits and Pieces

Whoops. It's almost been another two months... here are some random excerpts I started but never finished....

November 16 ----
Waaah it's been less than a week and I'm posting again! So this week was actually pretty eventful I think. Well, at least the weekend was. Wednesday and Thursday were spent p-setting and playing badminton. The week was kind of chill, so I even had time to go running twice. Jesus christ I am so out of shape, but determined to stop my freshman 15 in it's tracks! Anyway, on friday night we went to the z-center for a bit and played against some pretty boss people (I swear it sounds like we play badminton a lot more than we actually do.) Afterwards we were pretty freaking tired, but Maseeh was having a party so I dragged myself out of Simmons and walked with Weiwei there where we met Chan and his Korean friend who was visiting. The dance floor was dark with clumps of people just standing around. The only people who were dancing was a girl in the back facing a wall and a stripper on a table. I think it might've been a cross-dressing guy.  Right after him some girl got up and basically ripped off her bra, then danced around holding her boobs. That was our cue to leave. Before we made it out the door, some guy told us we should've been there for the professional stripper (because she was soooo good) which meant that the people currently stripping were students. Lmao, it was kind of hilarious since it was a dorm not a frat.

I love my mom's cooking ♥

November 25 ----
I'm currently stuck in some mad traffic on the way back to Cambridge, so I figured now's the perfect time to blog about my week off! Actually, it's because I already slept for almost four hours and can't sleep anymore haha. Anyway, Wednesday was technically the last day of classes, but i hopped on a bus as soon as classes were over on Tuesday. I thought I was going to miss my bus so I made Kevin and Chan semi-run with me to the station (whilst pulling my luggage for me).  In the end I made it no problem, and settled down for a long ride. Left Cambridge at 4 pm, and after some bus-train-car shenanigans, finally arrived home at around 1 am.  It felt so indescribably good to be home! Had the best sleep ever in my own bed, followed by the best shower ever.  Then I drove (I LOVE DRIVING) to pick up mara and go visit the high school!  Talked to a slew of teachers, including my old math teacher who told us she had to deactivate her Facebook because of some inappropriate pictures…whoops. Also tracked down Mr. V who was at the powderpuff football game and learned from him that my last creation in his class (the giant clay sculpture of birds nesting in my head) blew up into smithereens in the kiln. It was pretty distressing since I spent so much of my time on that, but at the same time oddly relieving since that meant that I didn't need to glaze it! My emotions were so conflicted. V saw it as some sort of metaphorical representation showing my cutting of ties with them. Anyway, we met up with Nicole too and went to grab some Coppola's pizza for lunch. MAN, they do pizza right in a big way. When I left for college I honestly didn't really think I'd be homesick in anyway, but I guess I didn't notice how much I missed it all until I finally got home. Anyway, we caught with each other's lives, but I had to send them home since I had a s&k scheduled with Emma! That stands for sit & knit by the way. Yes, we are young women and enjoy knitting.  I finally cast off the scarf that I started making in sophomore year. We calculated that to be one sixth of my life spent on knitting that scarf. How sad. Anyway, we talked, laughed, and swapped some good college stories. My mom's home-cooked dinner was absolutely delicious! Even though I'm currently experiencing the college 10, I still stuffed my face. I'll work it off later…At around 9, I hopped in my car and picked up Schendt, Nolan, Nicole and Matt for some RED MANGO. Spoiler alert, it was closed. My precious white peach would have to wait :( Instead, Nolan thought it'd be a great idea for us to go to the swamp. I thought it was an awful idea, but for some reason I ended up driving there anyway. Holy Jesus the road was narrow and deserted. Everyone kept saying that it was the kind of place where people get killed. Thanks a lot. Eventually Nolan got the message that I wanted to get out of there, so he directed me onto another road which was somehow sketchier than the last. He even admitted to me that sometimes he bikes along that road and thinks he's going to die. Great. We eventually ended up at the Diner, where I split a happy waitress and effectively ate my second dinner. Sarah showed up halfway through and afterwards we headed to Nolan's where we learned a new card game called Yuker.

Now ----

At coffeehouse!

Waaah it's almost the end of 2012! I've been mad busy/lazy the past month to even type anything, but to sum it all up, I basically went back to school after Thanksgiving break and sort of lazed my way through the final wave of tests. Punted a few p-sets, actually avoided the third bio test because of a weird fire alarm in my testing room, and soon it was time for finals. On the last day of classes, I performed with some friends at the AAA coffeehouse event which was pretty fun. The day before the show they emailed us saying they couldn't get a drum set, so we (practically) stole the one from Simmons and half carried half pushed it to the student center on a little red shopping cart. Kind of amusing looking back, but at the time it was not-so-enjoyable. In the past month I've also watched five movies. One was American Psycho which I watched over break at Gabe's house. Holy balls it was pretty messed up. Stupid psychological thrillers -_- The second was 200 Pounds Beauty, a Korean film, which I really enjoyed! I watched it with my roommate on her laptop during a random power outage. Then I watched three movies in a row with Chan on the days we had off to study for finals lol. Push was pretty cool, but it ended with a shitty cliffhanger and apparently the movie didn't do well enough in theaters to make a sequel. Fantastic. What did do well though was... Despicable Me! Such a cute, feel-good movie :) It really amazes me how people are able to animate and put together films like that - wouldn't that be such an awesome job? Anyway, the last movie we watched was Hello Ghost, another Korean film, and Chan had been nagging me to watch it with him for ages, so we did....and buckets of tears poured out of my eyes at the end. It was a really weird twist, not necessarily sad, but more of a sudden bittersweet realization. Chan said that only his parents and cousin have seen him cry before, but during the movie the couch started to shake, and I looked over and saw him with tears streaming down him face. Kevin fell asleep for a bit in the middle, and was really mad when he didn't cry at the end haha. Saturday night was supposed to be our S&M lounge secret santa (that stands for Sonya & Minerva by the way...what did you think!?) so we spent the day shopping (AKA not studying). I made Chan a card with minions on it since he loved those, burned him a CD, and bought two pairs of earrings. Apparently the ones I bought him were called princess huggie earrings...whoops. At midnight we all sat in a circle in the lounge, laughing and trading presents. The light hearted atmosphere made it finally feel like the holiday season! I got a batman calendar (stupid inside joke), some cherry blossom lotion, and chocolate from Serena. Chan told me it was probably the best Christmas present he's ever gotten, which kind of made my day haha.

Secret Santa in the lounge! 

Christmas Eve dinner cooked by yours truly :) 

My finals week was a disgrace to humanity. I probably studied more for high school midterms than I did for my first round of college finals. Actually, that's only partially true. I studied quite a lot for Japanese and chemistry (out of fear). But after three hours of chem on tuesday morning, I had absolutely no motivation to study for bio. So instead, I took a nap, ate two meals, and somehow it came to be 10pm. It was a pretty bad feeling when I realized that my final was in 11 hours and I hadn't even started studying yet lol. Somehow I pulled it off, and swore that I'd never do that to myself again....except that the same exact thing happened the next night right before the calc final lolol. Thank god for pass/no record this semester, I promise I'll be better come spring term :'D Anyway, right after the 18.02 final, I ate and packed like a madman for china. Soon I left Simmons behind and made it to South Station just in time for my bus. It actually felt a little weird to know I won't be back until February; I'm going to miss the place I've spent the last four months of my life at! Anyway, since I've been home, I've mostly been lazing around, hanging out with friends, and sleeping. I've been to a few Asian parties, ate a lot of good Chinese food, did a lot of shopping and caught up with a bunch of people. I also dragged Emma with me to guitar center a few days ago and bought myself a ukulele! Yayay it's so fun but singing along is kind of a challenge. I'm working on it though. The other night some people came over and we chilled while watching Mulan on VHS. It was actually kind of awesome how entertained some of them were by the movie.

Friends balancing cups on their....belts.

On saturday it snowed but my friends dragged me out to shop and we finally got brian new shoes! Yes! He's been wearing the same pair for ages. Yesterday my family dragged me out to do some more shopping, except this place was a far away outdoor mall, and I froze my ass off for 7 hours. On the bright side I bought a really (embarrassingly) cute suitcase and finally caved and got Uggs. Holy balls they are so goddamn warm. Props to the store for making us wait outside so by the time we finally made it in the store we were ready to blow our money on anything and everything that'd keep us warm haha. For dinner we went to this Asian buffet that we haven't been to in the longest time. It was so nostalgic eating all of the foods I used to love when I was a kid! Regrettably, I completely stuffed my face. Whoops. My goal is to lose the 10 pounds I gained at college before returning in February, and that probably didn't do me any favors haha. Buuuut I've actually managed to run three miles daily for the past week and hopefully I'll keep it up!

So I'm currently sitting at an Asian party finishing up this post. Sorry everything seems so choppy and random, my memory is jumping all over the place. Anyway, today is New Year's Eve! I can hardly believe the year is over, but it's definitely been a great one filled with good friends, both old and new. Should be heading over to Nolan's soon to rush in the new year with everyone, here's to another great year! :)

Fast Forward Again Please!

Dobby fell asleep hugging a table whilst filming

So....about that promise to blog more regularly...sorry.  Skip forward another month, and it's november! Actually, it's already been november for about two weeks.  Anyway, since the last time I've blogged, a lot more has happened! Eunice and I made a short movie for our film-mking seminar which turned out pretty weird, but was a lot of fun to make. We also went on a pretty crazy biking adventure with Randi a few weeks ago.  So we have a list of 101 things to do by graduation, and #87 is to bike the Minutemen Trail.  It starts in Alewife, Cambridge and runs north 11 miles to Bedford. We stupidly started the ride at around 4 pm and by the time we were almost to Bedford, it was already pitch-black outside.  The trail was unlit, so we used our iphone lights to make the rest of the trip there. Once we got there, the plan was to take a bus.....which apparently conveniently did not run on Sundays. When we asked a shop keeper, he told us that our best bet was to bike 8 miles to Arlington and try to catch a bus there. I don't know how, but we managed to make it there by biking practically on the highway.  It was mad scary, and pretty reckless of us :\ anyway, eventually we caught the bus that took us to Harvard and biked the two miles back to MIT.  Never. Again. Atleast we got to cross it off the list, but it took a few days for my butt to recover from that ride.

The before picture.

Oh yeah, speaking of biking, the reason I was able to get my bike in the first place is because my family brought it with them when they came for parent's weekend!! It was really nice to see them, and I had a lot of fun going out to eat some quality chinese food (finally!!!) and walking around harvard square.  We also went to a mini carnival and I took some cute photobooth pics with kaykay :) Before they left, I rode around in our car for a few minutes, and it got me all nostalgic. I miss my squeaky toyota :( Good thing I get to go home in exactly ONE WEEK! I was a little late with the whole booking-a-way-home thing, but managed to find a bus-line that I've never heard of and bought tickets.  Hopefully it's not that sketchy.  I felt kind of adventurous and almost bought tickets for the chinatown bus ...but arriving in chinatown at night is a little too adventurous for me.  

Also this past month was halloween! Me and my friends dress up as playing cards :) We bought the sweatshirts for only $5 a pop and used fabric markers to make them. Finding sweatshirts/shirts in the first place was kind of a challenge, and we walked up and down Mass Ave. for practically 3 hours looking for them. We hurriedly ate dinner and decorated them at top speed.  Then me and Eunice went to our IM badminton game while they tried to dry the sweatshirts with a blow-drier. I didn't play badminton very often back home, and I have no idea why because it's so freaking fun. Maybe that's my inner asian emerging.  Speaking of asians, almost all of my friends are asian minus one or two.  My friends back at home asked me if I'm going to college in Boston or China. They're funny. Anyway, after that we came back, got dressed, and showed up mega-late for spooky skate, which is when they open up the ice rink and you can skate for free.  We waited in line only to find out that they'd run out of our sizes :( Eventually we got our hands on skates and went around once....sad. But strangely fulfilling (it's on the list!). Afterwards we decided to head over to Boston and go to Chan's frat for a bit. It was a black-light party and hey had completely chalked all the walls with glow-chalk.  It was pretty trippy and awesome. Chan got his big to give us some vodka that burned the hell out of my throat, so I barely drank any. By the time we left at 2, he was in the process of getting pretty drunk, ripping his shirt off and dancing around.  The night after that was pumpkin drop! At midnight we were gathered around the Green Building (tallest building in Cambridge), waiting for the first liquid-nitrogen infused pumpkin to fall. They launched around 100 pumpkins, which all exploded upon impact.  It was kind of awesome. 

In other news, my friend I-Ling is part of a frat called Alpha Delta Phi, so we usually go with him to a lot of their events.  A few weeks we went to their semi-formal which included dinner and a trip to the Boston Opera House to watch Warhorse. Our dates were late and then we somehow didn't get the right tickets so we only saw the second half of the play.  Not really sure what went on...but the horses were mad realistic and the gun shots were really loud. I think the highlight was eating food, and then the 7 11 slurpee afterwards. This weekend (lol finally caught up to the present) we went to their M-night which stands for martini night. So we got suited up and battled over to the frat house in heels.  The martinis all smelled really good and tasted really bad. I still can't understand why people drink :\ We played a round of pool, in which me and me partner kicked I-Ling's ass. Then went upstairs to check out the casino games.  Some people were really into it and were winning big time, but we just threw around some chips on roulette.  I heard the winner would get an iPad mini, but there was no way that was gonna happen for us. We sat around until a few guys approached us and started making small talk. They were a little pretentious and pissed me off, but my roomie just told me to nod and smile, which worked wonderfully. Eventually she started talking to this guy I-Ling brought over (because they're into the same webcomic) and another guy came over to talk to me.  Unlike the others, this guy was nice and I felt pretty comfortable talking with him.  He showed me a bunch of card tricks (I got tricked by all of them) and we managed to leave the frat house at around 2:30, then journeyed over to CVS to buy red hairspray for Kevin (he lost a bet against me). We couldn't find any, so instead we got funions, tights, and nail polish. Close enough. After we got back we stayed up for no reason until past 6....oh my college sleeping schedule.  

My dad sent me a pic of Kaykay making a snow angel :)
So cute!

On sunday I was going to start homework I think, but managed to not. Next house was having a party, so we went over at around 11.  The music was pretty good, but the light system was insane.  They had a DJ there specifically for lights.  Also it was kind of a nice change to dance without worrying about getting caught in between two couples making out and grinding the hell out of each other. Dorm parties are so different from frat parties haha. Joyce came back to Simmons with us, and we got to talk for a little which was kind of nice since I hadn't really seen her around since orientation.  Mainly because we never go to parties with her even when she calls us. :\ She said she makes an effort to try and go out atleast a few times a week, and said we should go with her. I think i'll take her up on the offer since I feel like sometimes we're mad antisocial. Anyway, yesterday we had off for veteran's day, but we spent a lot of it studying for today's math midterm, yuck. After the midterm, I dragged some people to McDonald's with me to celebrate! I've been planning this for a while actually....man I really missed that place.  Got myself a frappe, and drank it while walking to the Z center in the rain.  I was so cold but it was sooooo worth it.  I also got an 100 on that math midterm, so now I get to cross off #3 on the list: Ace a test! WAAAHH!! Now i'm celebrating by not doing any work.  I'll deal with it all tomorrow night :') Time to go play badminton---!

Cool alleyway on Mass Ave. I think new graffiti is constantly layering over the old

We went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts! Trippy huh?

The white board outside our room :)

Beautiful Cambridge during the Head of the Charles rowing competition!

Home Away from Home

It's October! Time passes by so quickly. I can barely believe that I've already been here for over a month! Living away from home is really weird, but at the same time it's really liberating.  I'm also learning to be more organized, kind of.  Anyway, I've been mad busy and haven't had time to update this thing, so here we go, my whole first month of college!

Tim the beaver!

Orientation seems like forever ago, so I barely recall any details, but it was a flurry of meeting new people and struggling to remember names.  There were a billion events going on, so we were pretty busy except for when we were too lazy to go places. We did go to a weird carnival party at east campus where there were rides and contraptions made out of wood, and a big soap water pit where semi-clothed people wrestled as a girl showered them with glitter. I also went to a few other parties with good music and good dancing.  There were some guys who asked me to grind...awkward.  I feel like I've been pretty sheltered so far in life haha.  Anyway, we also went to the New England Aquarium which was pretty damn cool, except it's so depressing looking at those fish stuck in such little spaces. Soon, rush and recruitment started and me and my roommate thought it'd be a good idea to go paintballing. Mistake. So painful. We also went to the first day of recruitment which was pretty boring so we didn't go back.

After 10 days of orientation/rush, classes started!  This semester I'm taking bio, chem, multi-var calc, and japanese 3. Man, coursework here is so intense compared to high school! We have problem sets for each class due weekly and the learning pace in Japanese is mad fast, I have some trouble keeping up with what the hell is going on.  Also our teachers only speak in Japanese, and we aren't allowed to speak in English either haha. But this is probably going to really help my japanese so it's all good :) Regarding school, this past week was basically midterm week.  I had my first test in calc, bio, and chem and did way better than I expected. I've made some really good friends since I've gotten here, and they're really nice about helping me when I have no idea what the hell is going on (they're all super smart).  I'm also on really good terms with my roommate; she's from Washington (the state) and is a really good dancer.  She's also pretty random, and we have a lot of fun goofing off together and acting like 5 year olds. Attractive, I know. We also hang out with our neighbors a lot. One is a pathological liar from Oregon, and the other is a faux-korean pop star (he's taiwanese) from NYC who can breakdance. I've met a lot of students from taiwan actually, and they're all really nice except for this one guy who looks and dresses like a k-pop star and enjoys acting like a douchebag.  I think he's secretly nice though, but we'll see about that. I've also made my first korean friend! She's from St. Luis, Missouri and is pretty awesome.  I love it when her parents call her on the phone and we get to hear her speak in Korean. I've met so many people holy crap. There's a girl from Arizona, a whole slew of people from California, and I have classmates who're from Korea, China, Mexico, Spain, and Malaysia. College rocks.

Mit is so pretty :')

Since classes have started, we've also been on two cruises, one fancy boring one, and one fancy dancing one (it was basically a boat full of hot asian people. Me and Minerva (roommate) didn't really dress up since it was rainy and shitty outside, so we ended up sticking out from the sea of tight dresses, but oh well. Atleast we were comfortable lol. We've also been to a few frat parties, one of which was a foam party. It was pretty amusing dancing around in the bubbles, but so messy since we were covered in soap-y water. I've been to Boston to watch a weird pseudo live movie that my advisor directed.  It's kind of like a play, but with screens that show what's going on from his point of view as he films around the stage.  We got there halfway through so we had no idea what was going on, but there were a lot of naked people walking around on stage.

Cool street artists ^_^

I also went to the Prudential center, newbery street, china town, and Boston commons (almost got attacked by a squirrel) with Matt and Thomas when he came up to visit for a weekend! There was also a free concert featuring....Gavin DeGraw and Train! Oh man they are so good in concert.  I went to career fair here, and got 20 free shirts and a shit-ton of other stuff. Impressive, huh? Also I joined the IM badminton team for my dorm, and it's really fun and intense lol. I tried club volleyball too, but it was so painful that I never went back after the first practice. I'm also part of an art club that a bunch of people are trying to start, but we haven't really done much yet. I also tried out for some dance groups, but didn't get in :'( I'll probably try out next semester though! In the rest of my free-time I mostly just bum around with my friends and play a lot of tetris and SET.  It's kind of sad, but oh-so addicting. The other day I watched "You Are the Apple of my Eye", a taiwanese romance film. It was hilarious, but left me with a bittersweet feeling. I also couldn't help myself and cried a little even though I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be a sad movie. I've also seen Moonrise Kingdom with my advising group which was a really weird movie that I somehow managed to cry during as well. Speaking of movies, tonight they're playing the Hunger Games in the MPR downstairs! I've seen it before, but I'm looking forward to seeing Peta's dopy face again. Eeep dinner time! Sorry this post was really disjointed and random, I promise to start posting more regularly!

tldr, I love MIT :)

Shooting Stars and Ice Cream

Skewered hotdogs with mac n' cheeeeessee

Ah what an eventful week!  Last (last) thursday morning we set off on a road trip to Massachusetts since Nicole's family owns a house near the sea, practically on the sea actually.  The 6 hours passed very quickly with everyone hating on one another's music choices; there was everything from mainstream rap and pop to indie rock to kpop and even video game soundtracks. We arrived around dinner time to the cutest beach house ever! The whole place is really open and lets in a lot of light.  There were also duck/cat decorations everywhere. We unloaded the car, and then tried to track down an ice cream truck only to see it drive past later. What a bunch of teases. We made some delicious broccoli bacon pasta for dinner (I washed and ripped apart the broccoli) and brought it outside to the second floor deck to eat. The bugs started to attack, so eventually we went back inside and cleaned up. Not sure what we did after that, but it was probably either cards (pressiddennttss) or video games. We played a lot of both during our stay. I literally woke up every single morning to the sweet sound of super mario bros wii. The second day we had pancakes for breakfast. I helped to make stars, cats, and dinosaurs but they didn't come out exactly right. Nolan woke thomas up by putting a pancake on his face. Then we hit the beach and built a giant wall fortress that surrounded a little sand mound (wasn't even a castle) with a piece of grass. It looked very impressive next to the giant complicated sand kingdom a few meters down the shore. We decided that they cheated because they used buckets. Afterwards we went back to the house, and I took the most glorious shower. Then we made a quick trip down to Dick's (the local convinience store) and bought some wieners (lol what a coincidence). I learned how to cut spiral hotdogs, and we ate them topped with mac n' cheese (yumyum). After lunch we all kind of just bummed around. I think we laid on a bed talking about random stuff until it was time for dinner.  By then it was pouring, but for some reason we decided to drive to get lobster.  We went down two blocks before it occurred to us that it might flood, so we turned around and went home. So instead we had a eat-whatever-you-want meal, and Nolan, Brian, and I decided to make some spicy ramen which Schendt had a hard time forcing down. After dinner we watched The Road to Zanzibar which was a black and white movie that was pretty average (it was a graduation present from Thomas because of my bad nickname). Then we played more presidents (president got to DJ) and also some ERS which should not be played at 2 in the morning. We took a walk on the beach, which was kind of terrifying in the dark with the waves crashing on the shore. Standing there in front of the black ocean made me feel so small.  But since it was so dark, the stars were visible, so that part was nice. When everyone went to sleep, me and Thomas stayed up and chatted until 5.  It felt pretty bad to go to sleep after the sun had already started to rise.

He promptly fell on his ass right after this picture was taken

I woke up way too early the next morning (video games. again.) but had a nice french toast breakfast on the porch. Then we suited up for the beach again and built some nice sand sculptures. Matt was really good at it and made a sphinx, a car crash, a mummy, the great wall (I helped), and some birfday cake (with assistance from thomas). Nolan invested his time on the colosseum, and Brian and Nicole made a McDonald's while I attempted to make a Buddha, but his thighs were huge. I also learned how to skimboard (kind of), froze my ass off in the water, and played a few games of 500 with the frisbee. Afterwards we had a psuedo-lunch-dinner of hawaiian pizza with jalapeños. Soon after we trekked over the bridge to Bob Lobster for dinner-dinner. We passed Dick's on the way back and bought a tub of Snickers ice cream to share. Once we got home they broke out the video games again, and I broke out my sketchbook. Thankfully they didn't play for very long, but I honestly think we might've played cards again (how sad). We decided to go on the second floor landing, and sat around making up stories when suddenly Thomas starts to accompany Brian's story with some keyboard fillers. Eventually that turned into us all sitting on the floor in the dark while Thomas played songs and we all screeched along with the lyrics. It was pretty weird and I kept telling everyone we were in a dream. After we all came back to our senses, we took a trip to the beach to see if the meteor show was visible.  It was a little cloudy, but we could see thousands of tiny specks whizzing around above us, and every now and then there'd be a bright streak that zoomed across the sky. It was pretty awesome, and kind of surreal. We stood on the beach for a while telling more stories but then went inside where we bummed around and chatted for a few hours before going to sleep at 5 again.

Fire and Ice! Delicious.

Sunday morning (rain is falling) I surprisingly didn't wake up to video games. Well, they were playing video games but pretty quietly. Me and Nicole made some cheesy scrambled eggs and we had a quick breakfast before packing up and hitting the road for Boston! We decided to meet at the Fire and Ice in Cambridge for lunch, and that's when we screwed up. Actually I screwed up. So I was driving with Nolan, and he asked me to check on my phone where the restaurant was. Turns out I accidentally dropped a pin on the map and thought that was the Fire and Ice, so we parked in front of my future dorm since he wanted to see what it looked like and planned on walking two blocks to meet up with everyone. Halfway there the purple pin on the map disappeared and I realized it wasn't the place. So I researched it, and it looked like a semi decent walk so Nolan suggested we just walk anyway. Turns out it was over 2 miles, which we didn't realize until we walked half of it, so we speed walked/ lightly jogged/ worked up a sweat. Along the way, we saw a peach tree, and I nabbed one. After our scenic trek (the Cambridge neighborhoods were adorable) we finally arrived at Fire and Ice! So basically you get a bowl and fill it with whatever raw ingredients you want, get a cup of sauce, and hand both to these dudes in the middle who dump your stuff on a giant cooking circle. It was delicious! I'm definitely going back in the fall.

Driving home ^_^

So after a very filling meal, we walked through Harvard back to Thomas' car so he could drive us back to our car lol. While dropping us off, everyone agreed that my future dorm looked like a plastic factory/ children's hospital. -_- We listened to indie music and had some interesting discussions on the way back (while also trying to race the other car).  Brian has some really strong opinions on religion, but that's probably why he wants to minor in it next year. Anyway, we stopped at Wendy's for a quick dinner (chili mmm...) switched up the cars, and drove all the way home! All I remember after I got home was that I was mad tired.  I think I went to bed before 1 am for the first time in a long time.

Monday was recovery day. Except not really because I had to wake up early for an annual check up as well as a trip to the bank to set up an account. Literally have no recollection of what happened from then until later that night when I went to go see Step Up Revolution with Mara and Emma. I'd been wanting to see the movie for a while and can't say I was disappointed; the dancing was amazing but the acting was horrific. Then we went back to Emma's house and marathon-ed through Step Up 2: The Streets.

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Karaoke in the city! I miss you guys ♥

So I started this post over a week ago... I guess I'll just blaze through the next two weeks of my life! Right, so the rest of that week I basically spent my mornings going to different doctors, eye doctors (new glasses!), and banks to get my shit together for college. On tuesday we had our last Shalom practice for a while. I remembered a lot more songs than I thought I would. It was kind of depressing, and afterwards we went to the dinner and got giant slices of cake. On wednesday we hit the city for dinner and karaoke! After sitting around in Mexique munching on chips and guac, we went to Hmart for some random asian candy (I also got a melon ice bar which was delicious). Eventually we met up with everyone and made our way over to Karaoke Duet 35 where I actually sang quite a few times (unlike in Japan). Me and Nicole sang some HSM together while Brian went all out on a Nickelback song. He and thomas got really into Adele too. Once we were all sung out, we headed over to a Latin Grill place, and I ordered a chicken burrito which was delicious but literally poured oil all over my hands. Then we walked back to Thomas's car so we could go home....but it wasn't there.  Apparently he parked half-illegally, so his mini van got towed away to some random pier (they figured this out after making a billion calls). While a few of them went to retrieve the car, the rest of us went to Dunkin where we played stupid games to pass the time. Eventually they got the car, picked us up, and we were headed home.

Pre-college dimsum :)

The next morning we went to get sum dim sum (haha) for lunch, and I actually tried sum (ohoho) chicken feet which turned out not nearly as disgusting as I thought it was going to be. Actually, it was pretty good, but kind of on the squishy side. After lunch we bummed around in the school for a bit before going our separate ways and meeting up again for bowling...which didn't happen because the lanes were full. So instead we trekked all the way across the street to Starbucks, and then the BK lounge where victor ordered a bacon sundae. Then we went back to Nicole's where I finally got to do a cat puzzle! There were 2000 (?) pieces but I managed to make the "C" in "CATMANIA" so I'd call that a success. Victor was very impressed by the casualness of the cats, while Dan was over-joyed to find out that not all cats hate him. Soon it was time to go, so we hugged Nicole good luck for her trip to Hamilton friday morning!

Selfies.

At the moment I have zero recollection of what I did on friday so I guess I'll skip that. On saturday night I went out bowling (for real this time) with some people and chilled with them afterwards. The next day I was going to go say good bye to victor and give him a copy of the Shalom Dragon DVD but he left 4 hours earlier than I thought he was going to. So that went out the door. Instead, I drove down to visit Ed! It was supposed to take an hour and 10 minutes, but somehow I went a weird way (while the GPS kept going "recalculating. recalculating. recalculating") and took an extra half hour. We had dan dan noodles for lunch which were delicious, and then left for a day of...shopping! We hit up some stores for college essentials, Micky D's for food essentials, and Five Below for (FIVE FREAKING BAGS OF) candy essentials. Ed also bought 2 more bags of candy at target and a pack of oreos. I kept telling him he was going to get diabetes, but he just laughed and bought them anyway. We also went to the mall so I could make a quick stop and buy some shower flip flops from Old Navy.  On the way there Ed was telling me about how he never buys clothes and only wears free t-shirts.  He bought flip-flops, a pair of jeans, and three shirts at ON. Go figure. We also went to Game Stop where he got Just Dance 3 so we could play when we got back.  We worked up a sweat pretty quickly awkwardly trying to get our bodies to match the ones on the screen, but I'm pretty sure we failed and just made complete asses of ourselves.  The best part was that his cousins(?)/family friends(?) were just sitting there watching us at one point. For dinner we ate at a Sichuan restaurant which was DELICIOUS. I definitely ate way to much spicy food which make my taste buds very happy but my tummy very sad. We took some nice selfies before I hopped in my car and sped home. I decided to follow the GPS this time (mostly because I had to pee really badly and just wanted to get home as fast as possible. Damn you large sweet tea) and it actually got me home in a little over one hour! All I remember after that is that I had a great pee. I think I just chilled out and wrote more thank you cards that night. Actually come to think of it, that's probably what I spent friday doing.

The next week was a blur of finishing cards, going out, saying goodbye, and getting ready to leave. That friday I went out to dinner at Thai Thai, went to some mad fancy ice cream parlor, and bummed around in Nolan's basement just like we'd done all summer. Soon it was time to leave so I hugged everyone goodbye and went to do some last minute packing.  In the morning, I was woken up by Brian who unexpectedly showed up at my door after coming home from an unexpected road trip.  He gave me two volumes of the manga Monster (I finished all volumes online since then...) and wished me luck. After a whirlwind of frantically getting ready, the car was jam-packed with my college stuff, and we set off for Cambridge!

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Awkward...  I've been at MIT for more than a week! I was so worried at first, but I love it here.

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Even more awkward. It's now been another three weeks. I think i'll just post this damn thing instead of letting it rot away as a draft.

Going Back and Moving Forward

This past week has been really relaxing. I spent a lot of time bumming around with kaykay, and she was almost kind of tolerable!  I even tagged along with her and my mom one evening on a walk to the park. My memory's already a little fuzzy, but I remember that day was really sunny and beautiful.  It was a nice break from all the storms that've been hitting our area recently. Anyway, we stayed at the park for quite some time while kaykay ran around with a few kids and my mom talked to another mom.  I flipped open to a fresh page in my sketchbook and settled down on a bench. Actually that bench was the most uncomfortable thing ever, so "settled down" probably isn't the right choice of words.  But speaking of drawing, I've also been doing a lot of it this past week. I've also been having day dreams of starting a graphic novel again haha.  I haven't felt so refreshed in a long time; I feel like I'm a kid again, not a high school graduate! Sitting at my desk and getting headaches from breathing in the marker fumes has never felt better! Maybe it's because we are going to college soon, but I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately.  It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that I'm scared to make the transition.  It's weird.  I know that I'm not actually saying goodbye to anyone for good, but this whole thing's got me feeling uneasy. Haha this blog post is a mess! I intended to blog about what I did this week and then post some kickass pictures, but somehow I've started rambling.

Made fried rice with Emma!

Anyway, this week I've done some running with nicole at night, and once in the morning (lol never again please.) I've also been cooking a lot, which is pretty uncharacteristic of me. I dunno what's gotten into me, but I had so much random energy.  So instead of sitting on my ass like usual, I actually helped out and accomplished things (but I still did allooott of ass-sitting and manga-reading (kimi ni todoke and shaman king!)) I'm a little too proud of my culinary creations (since it's such a rare occasion), so I'll be posting pictures of all of my masterpieces! Enjoy :)

Carrot and broccoli omelette (with an artistic rip in the middle) (lol jk that was an accident)

Iceberg lettuce, roasted red peppers, tomatos, walnuts, cranberries, and this awesome leftover dressing from the party

Carrots, broccoli, rotini, and oregano. 

Red pepper, broccoli, mozzarella, and baby spinach on a tomato-sauce-fried roll.

Another picture because it was so very delicious :) 

So besides for re-awakening my inner art-god from slumber and becoming a master-chef, I've been hanging out with my friends and watching the London 2012 Summer Olympics! Shalom even reconvened one night. Victor was too sick to come though so I played drums for a little which was really fun even though my drumming was pretty sad. My parents are also making me start my thank you cards already.  It was a pain in the ass to start at first, but I bought the cutest cards and once I started writing them, I actually enjoyed it! I didn't just thank them for the gifts, but I also tried to include more personal stuff, which lead me to get pretty emotional and again, nostalgic.  And this was only our family friends! I'll be starting my friends' cards soon though, and hopefully I don't go overboard haha. Also....I got my very own laptop! A 13" Macbook Pro.  It's beautiful :') and definitely worth being broke for. I'm actually using it right now as I blog from the comfort of my bed. Speaking of the comfort of my bed...goodnight.