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 :) 

Standing on Stars

Wowowow it's been so long I'm not even going to bother trying to write about everything. Skipping straight to the pics ----

End of semester rush- late night take out, Logs concert(!!), cold weather with Daaabbbinn, practicing for coffeehouse performance, my Japanese class <3 , Weiwei stuck on a tree, awesome CD christmas tree,  preparing for that all nighter :'), kresge in snow!

ADT showcase! 

Final studio models :) Got to laser cut these from chipboard! Not going to bother writing about it here, but if you're curious, you can read about it in my portfolio!

Final project for my computing design class! Made detachable roller-skates. Rhino file --> milled from foam --> mold out of rubber --> cast in plastic. It took foreveeerr, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - Especially since my sister had a lot of fun with them ^^

Family time over Christmas break <3 Went to see Frozen which was AWESOME (also, I got in with children's admission. Do I actually look younger than 12??) Went to see Big Apple Circus in NYC! I had fun at my first circus lol. Hot pot, candles, and coffee with mom!

New Years trip to LAKE PLACID! It was unbelievably cold, holy balls. As soon as you walked outside, your nostrils would freeze = pretty bad feeling- but I had a blast on the trip! We ice skated, snowboarded (or at least tried to lol), and went snow tubing! The winter Olympics were held at Lake Placid a while ago, so we got to see the Olympic speed ski slope and stand on the podium! Also the view was absolutely gorgeous.

Did I mention that we got to stay at Nolan's aunt's condo? It was super homey and warm, and we all cooked together and played board games, drank hot chocolate, and ate fudge in front of the fireplace. Ahhhh so nice~

Of course this post wouldn't be complete without a food pic. Spoiler, there's another one right after this one lol. Vegetable tofu omelette, first IHOP experience (it was really good), qdoba, some weird-ass eggplant thing that tasted ehhh but was pretty photogenic nonetheless, DIMSUM (A new place opened in town!), HOTPOT, Thai curry, chipotle chicken sandwich, tomato sausage stuff and veggie stir fry by chef Thomas and chef Nolan. 

HA. more food. Deliciously delicious ravioli and Bruschetta from some fancy Italian place we went to for Jenn's birthday, fried rice & tomato and egg soup, obligatory asian food, and Fire & Ice! 

Back at school! Fun times with friends/ eating out/ eating in/ eating sweet potatoes/ cuddling with Minerva's new boyfriend body pillow lmao.

Jenn's Birthday! Went out for Italian at Harvard Square and yes they posed with trash/recycling bins...

Found this awesome dead carnation in a bottle...check out that mold....standing on top of stars (it was actually a Holocaust monument), dinner with Matt at the North End (yay get to check that off the list!), went bowling with strangers and made some new friends - then grabbed gigantic froyos which were delicious, but I was close to puking by the end. Chinatown dim sum selfies, THE DOOR WAS OPEN, photobombing a snapchat, and hipster reflection selfies in the tunnels.

Damn I can't believe I put that off for so long, and honestly a lot more has happened since I made these collages haha....will blog very soon hopefully! Also, it's 5 am and I'm not even remotely tired right now.  My sleep schedule is so screwed up, especially since I slept from 12 - 7:30 pm today. Literally nocturnal. Anyway, at least I will attempt to sleep - Goooood night!

Daddy Shark

How has it only been a week since Thanksgiving break ended? It feels like an eternity! Luckily I survived last week - finished and presented my final project for my building systems class.  Me and my partner ran into a lot of snags along the way, and I pulled a pretty hectic all-nighter the night before, but we finished, and I gotta say, it looked fucking badass.  We made an office building in San Francisco that was 150% self sufficient and ran on solar power and biomass energy harvested from a giant algae tank facade that covered the building.  Honestly it looked kind of like a weird ass UFO from some sic-fi movie, but I was pretty attached to it. Thank god it's over though! One down. Last week I also somehow managed to take my last two tests in Japanese. Now all I have in one last presentation tomorrow, and I'm done with that class for the semester! Wooohoooo

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Lol so I never finished this blog post, and now I'm coming back to it! It's now been two weeks since Thanksgiving break, and it feels like two eternities! (Ha see what I did there?)

Today was a pretty hectic day. Actually this whole week has been pretty busy scrambling around from practice to 

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Well, I fell asleep attempting to write that last one.

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Lol screw it I'm just gonna post this thing. 

Colorful stalls/graffiti wall/awesome building in New York! Also the inside of a gap fitting room since I thought it looked cool lol

I call this piece "Friends with Food".  As you can see, I tried to explore the relationship between my friends and my food, utilizing different techniques such as foreground, background, and focus.

Lol my dad is a shark...also he can levitate mini beach balls with a blow dryer. Crazy.

Obligatory food collage. Happy Waitress from the diner, bellobello panini from Rebecca's, omelette+sriracha via dining hall, kick ass food from Xi'an Famous Foods (downtown Manhattan), home-cooked goodness, quality ramen, more dining hall food, and FOOD TRUCK EGGPLANT MMM.

Recharge

Currently sitting on the couch wrapped up in a warm blanket while watching pokemon with my sister.  It feels so good to be home! When I got home on wednesday, I gotta admit I spent a while just sitting in my room looking around and taking it all in. Showering in my shower, sleeping in my bed, and eating my mom's cooking - it feels like it's been forever even though it's been only 3 months!

Minion snapchat, welcome home roses & tea! - rainbow unicorn craft-time with kaykay, early premier of CATCHING FIRE which was absolutely fantastic. Might've made me into a bit of a peeta fan-girl, ATS care package from Minerva! - lunch with Jenn at Flour, packet of milk tea mmmm, sitting on the train home while eating my first falafel! When my bus got to new york, I had an hour before I had to catch a train, so I went outside of the station and ventured to one of those middle eastern food carts.  The guy in front of me asked if I had change for a 20- which caused me to realize I didn't even have enough cash for a meal. He was surprised I didn't know they only dealt in cash, but instead of letting me go find food somewhere else, he insisted to pay for my falafel wrap! To top it off, the vendor didn't know the other guy gave me money and offered to make my food for free. It sounds cheesy, but I was so overcome by their kindness.
I didn't know NYC people could be so nice :) 

Pesto/mozzarella/pepper/spinach salad from Flour, quality pre-catching fire snacks provided by the one and only Micky D's, grilled chicken pesto panini from late night cafe (with a guest appearance by fanta), FALAFEL, salad and quesadillas from dining 

Celebrating Eunice's 20th! Holy crap I'm gonna be 20 in only a few months. Casino night at ADP - We didn't play casino games but I did make $9 playing pool….;) on the T with Eunice en route to Catching Fire! Gorgeous yogurt cake that honestly just tasted like cheesecake. Minerva's extremely malleable face.

HOME. Spent a good hour playing that game but still couldn't win :( also went to annual Thanksgiving football game!  I'm sad to say that the marching band this year was actually kind of weak, but it was still nice to see some familiar faces. I can't believe that my old little freshmen bass drummers are graduating this year! They grow up so fast :') lol. 

First lunch home! Tofu wanzi and baked yams :) Awesome (asian) thanksgiving feast at a family friend's house. Eunice's fruit tart, and some ballin' margarita pizza at Bertucci's after missing my bus home and waiting for the next. 

Pear Man

Whew what a weird week. The days all blurred together, mostly because my time perception got completely thrown off from sleeping at random intervals throughout the day, everyday. What is night? What is day? Who knows.  Last friday I slept from 8 am - 3 pm. Which surprisingly is pretty good in regards to the number of hours I got, but when I woke up at 3 and looked at the clock, I felt like a piece of shit. By the time I had finished showering and getting ready to go to a meeting, the sun had already set. Quite depressing really. But on the bright side (or dark side? ha. haha.) I got some pretty damn good free sushi at said meeting. Later that night I went with Skyler and Kevin to a pool bar which was pretty chill. We sat around joking around about we should play some random dudes for money….too bad none of us have the balls (or the skills) for that. After we got back I watched some quality Korra, and then read shitty vampire manga until 6 am…why. Why did I do that.  

This week is looking pretty bad work wise, but there's also a lot of things I'm looking forward to! Going to a premier of Catching Fire on thursday and a dance show/competition on Friday. Should be good. 

Also check out the joint [food blog] that I write with my friends. It was inactive for months, but Big Tom recently revived it, and now I get to blog about all my food twice lol. WOOOOOOO 

Random window view while studying. Cool bubble installation I stumbled upon. Pepero from Dabin on Pepero Day! FREE SUSHI. Trying to be G. Quite embarrassing. Playing pool on a Friday night.

My project from last week! We got to 3D print our models :) cute huh? Actually, this stupid little thing was the biggest pain in my ass for 3 days straight. Nothing was going right, and I was ready to hurl my laptop against a wall. But somehow it all worked out in the end. Thank god.

Tofu ramen and more eggplant from the food truck! A weird garlic/vegetable omelette with mango salsa which was pretty interesting to say the least. It almost tasted like throw up actually…but it was pretty enough to take a picture. Last but not least, a close up of dat free sushi. It was my first time trying eel, and I gotta say I enjoyed it immensely

Spinach Dip Heaven

Ah currently kicking back to some Coldplay and enjoying an extremely chill sunday post brunch-in-my-bed moment. Raspberries, bread, spinach dip, and a glass of cold OJ - all while surrounded by warm blankets and pillows - is this heaven?  I love long weekends.  As sad as it sounds, it's extremely refreshing to be able to finally let loose on a Sunday.  I mean, Sundays are technically supposed to be a day of rest, no? But usually I spend the whole day stressing out and desperately trying to finish my seemingly never ending workload.  Not that this weekend is actually any different - I've got a pile of work that I've pushed to the side in my attempt to pretend that I actually have time to kick back and relax. Come to think of it, I've practically been doing this all weekend…

It all started on Thursday.  After classes ended, I lined up at the food truck in anticipation of another delicious eggplant meal.  When I pulled out my meal rewards card, to my surprise, I had enough stamps for a FREE meal. And so I claimed my prize with a big (possibly disturbing) smile, and biked back to my dorm where I enjoyed a very asian lunch, complete with green tea (okay arizona's not that asian) and a good drama. When my roommate got back from class, she joined me, and somehow we ended up watching over 4 hours…while we were watching though, I managed to finish my scarf that I've been working on since sophomore year of high school! That's a FIFTH of my life spent on one scarf…lol jk i'm not that slow, but it's true that I started it 4 years ago. Later that night I went to a study break event where they were serving fancy desserts.  I had planned to stay out for an hour at most, but somehow didn't get back until 3 hours later.  Damn. 

On Friday I went to a nice cafe that I've been wanting to try out for a while with Eunice for lunch! Had a pretty good grilled portobello panini with pesto, tomato, and mozzarella, but unfortunately was still a bit hungry so I made myself a large mug of tea when I got back to my room. I actually attempted to do some work (go me!!!) but then gave up and took a nap instead. Played some pool and ate dinner with Minerva before bundling up and heading to the supermarket(!!!!!!!). In case you can't tell, I love grocery shopping, especially with friends!  Lately a group of us has been looking into some apartments around the area hopefully in preparation for next fall. I can't wait for us all to cook/eat together, and of course, go weekly grocery shopping! Ah, what a dream to have. Anyway, after the supermarket, I cut Minerva's bangs for her, skyped with Courtney who I haven't talked to in forever, and then screwed around until 5 am before deciding to bike back to my dorm. Wow really letting myself go.

Saturday was no better in terms of productivity. I woke up just in time for brunch, ate, showered, and  thought about doing work but didn't actually do it.  Then I went to a dance workshop which I was hesitant to go to by myself, but actually had a blast and got to learn a pretty sick routine. When I got back, somehow me and my roommate got into a two hour talk about all the awkward tension between us for the past month or so.  At first the conversation was pretty tense, but by the end I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.  I think we understand each other a lot better now, and I was really happy that we were able to have that conversation! I've always thought it's sad when roommates choose to ignore each other and lead completely separate lives even when they live and sleep in the same room.  We were pretty close to that, but I'm glad we did something about it. Anyway, for dinner I went out with a group of people who were very intent on taking my "pho virginity". AKA they were horrified I hadn't eaten pho before and took me out to have my first bowl of heavenly Vietnamese soup noodles.  I gotta say, was not disappointed in the slightest! Pretty damn good and would definitely go out again for them.  After eating a huge bowl, I somehow still craved delicious asian beverages so we made a pit stop at Juice Bar where I got a hot cup of Thai milk tea with lychee jelly. A godsend to say the least. When I got back, my roommate and I marathon-ed the five latest episodes of Korra.  The animation and art were beautiful! My roommate could barely keep her emotions in check lol. After that, I went partying with Jenn and her brother who was visiting. I like talking to clever people with a quick wit, and I'd say he fit in that category. I got back to my room around 4 am, got ready for bed, and slept like a rock until almost 2 pm today. 

Aka I had a pretty fantastic weekend so far. Lately I've realized that my guilt for not doing work has been growing weaker and weaker, and I'm not sure whether that's something I should be concerned about or not...

My second architecture studio project! Plaster model, wax model, rubber mold, and the two halves of my 3D print. I also had a 5 foot tall presentation poster with all my diagrams/drawings but forgot to take a picture of it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Now onto the third and final project….

More fun times with friends :) Grocery shopping, eating pho, partying, being a walrus, walking outside, and making embarrassing poses in studio. 

Awesome Ender's Game hack in lobby 7,  unproductive working conditions, my glorious food truck reward card, 4 year scarf, terrifying snap chat I got from weiwei, and a cool art project labeled "tech giants" that I stumbled upon in the student center!

Beautiful beautiful food.  (Free) eggplant + drama + green tea combo, delicious panini from Flour, PHO, and a box of bread I took from dining hall + some spinach dip I bought during my grocery shopping adventure. I ate 10/12 servings in two days..I feel disgusting. 

Laundry Days and Quandary Days

Well, it's 6 am but for some nonsensical reason, I'm blogging anyway! Yeah that's dedication right? Aka I haven't blogged for a month now…

This past month has pretty much been a blur since it passed so quickly! It was really busy and quite stressful, but I think I managed to not let it get to me that much. Either that or maybe I've just stopped caring… lol jk, but in all seriousness it's a bit depressing how much this place beats you down. It makes you feel overwhelmed and incompetent, dumb even, when many of the people here are anything but. It instills self-doubt, self-loathing, and insecurity even in the people whom we think look so put together and in-control on the outside.  

On a brighter note, today I met with the program director for…MIT Japan! I'm applying for an architecture internship in Japan this summer which I really hope comes through! The guy I talked to reminded me a lot of my old high school Japanese teacher in the way he speaks, but perhaps mostly because they're both white dudes who love Japan. He randomly started talking about this industry in China called the "Gutter Oil" industry and showed me a [video] which made me think back on all the times I ate delicious fried street food in china. Literally ate shit. T_T

On an even brighter note, the sun has officially risen and it's light outside (see what I did there?) That's my cue to go to sleep. Enjoy the pictures, and I'll blog again soon! Goooood night :)

Late night shopping on Newbury Street! We came across a piano from the "play me I'm yours" project on which we struggled to play any song we could remember…aka a few measures of like three songs. Went out with Jenn for some Telonius Monkfish for our girl date ;). Posing with TIM (the beaver) during Spooky Skate. Being straight up G with Randi before an ADT performance. Kevin sandwiched between the top of my closet and the wall. Don't ask. 

Bad ass architecture installments made by the grad students for the graduate open house! 

Parents weekend!! It was really nice and refreshing to see my family :) 

All the delicious food I've been spoiling myself with! Been going out to eat more often this semester, and I love it! Gahh can't wait to get off meal plan so I can do it all the time.  Btw that pink cauliflower was a dorm event for breast cancer awareness. I didn't eat it, but I included it since it was so amusing. Also, I've been eating way too much eggplant from the asian food truck lately….BUT I CANT STOP, ITS SO GODDAMN DELICIOUS. O _ O 

Another NOT ART sighting. I love these, for no particular reason except that they amuse me quite a bit. Baker piano drop! They loaded a piano with $500 worth of candy (not sure if they were exaggerating or not..) and pushed it off the top of the dorm. I stole that photo from my awesome photographer friend who montaged three different moments in the piano's fall (yeah, they didn't push off three pianos). Right two photos are from Nightmarket! It's an event held by all of the asian culture groups on campus and it's basically a night of performances, food, and activities.  Check out the sick henna I got!