things and more things

Inspiration for the week of 9/22-9/28:

• (Shown above) Ana Kraš - Shy Gestures from the Avant/Garde Diaries. (Ana & Devendra collabs = !!!! = loveliest couple ever)
• Refer to this post for the poems that I discovered/re-discovered this week.
• Prof. Jensen Jeung. Only been in his class for two days and he's already my favorite.
• 100 Years From Now

Things and people I'm grateful for:

• My soon-to-be concert buddy!
• The little girl I'm tutoring.
• That guy who has the really wonderful and deep voice and who is also so humble about who he is and where he's been that it amazes me.
• My commuter buds.
• Having a car.

Things I just realized:

• I'm seeing Young the Giant on Tuesday.
• I still haven't finished watching Pushing Daisies.

What I was listening to while putting this post together:

• We Are The Tide (2011) by Blind Pilot

week one

View from the eleventh floor of Swig. Sorry you have to deal with my low quality photos (taken with my phone).

Who knew the first five days at school could feel like five months?

9/21-9/22: Welcome Weekend. Mostly just freshmen moving into their dorms and other activities. Commuters were "welcome to attend" but we were excluded from just about everything. Honestly it sucked, but I'm grateful we made a commuter group on Facebook beforehand and were able to connect and meet up with each other that weekend. It made making friends and going around campus a lot easier. I went to one party on Saturday night, and that was interesting. I was with some pretty great people so that made the experience more satisfying, but in general I don't see the point in convening with hordes of strangers who are mostly there to get high and wasted. Some say it's how you socialize and network, but how do you network with people who are just getting smashed and spilling drinks everywhere? Not cool in my book. (Especially since a lot of people were sent to get medical help that night.) Apparently it was a "really good" party, and I guess I can see why, but in general my ideal party is an intimate night (alcohol optional) with my peeps and actually getting to have good conversations, rather than having to shout over the din of shouting drunkards.

9/23-9/27: First week of classes. This quarter I'm taking Elementary Latin, Principles of Sociology, Critical Thinking and Writing (a fall/winter core requirement), and Intro to East Asia History. I'm really happy with it. Earliest class is at 11:45 am so I don't need to leave the house before eleven. Only one class on Friday, so I'm out by one in the afternoon. My favorite professor at the moment is my sociology professor. Everything seems like a blur right now and I'm getting sleepy trying to remember everything so I'll just leave it there.

At least I'm 10% done with this quarter already. Everything is going to go swimmingly. Fingers crossed.

Some things never leave a person:

Old photo. Taken around April this year at Mission Peak.

Poems I read tonight and would like to share:

• "Where You Go When She Sleeps" by T.R. Hummer
• "Oranges" by Gary Soto (I first read this in middle school, I believe! Glad that I found it again.)
• "Persimmons" by Li-Young Lee

Now that I think of it, those three poems all contain really lovely color imagery. Golds, oranges, reds. I guess I'm subconsciously finding myself drawn to autumn colors. I actually started crying after reading "Persimmons" (oh hush—crying over poems is what I do to alleviate stress) because sometimes poems just knock you over that edge you've been tip-toeing along during those days or weeks or months when you're plain exhausted, so you just gotta let the tears well up. Then you dry your eyes. Then you keep going. Yup. Can you tell that I'm writing this at one in the morning while avoiding my Latin homework and Sociology reading?

Happy reading (and crying, if that applies to any of you).

succulents and room redecorating

This is the sketchbook I mentioned in a previous post, featuring a page of colorful stickers from an old Hamtaro calendar that I never used and a quick drawing based on the model in this post found on Tumblr. Next to the sketchbook are two succulents that I've propagated from plants in my backyard! There's a third one sitting on top of my wardrobe inside a glass fishbowl, but I think it's dying so I may have to plant a new one...

I recently decided I wanted to redecorate my room a bit. After weeks of watching friends go off to college and looking at their Instagram and Facebook posts about moving into their dorms, as well as reading those college life blogs that post nice photos of well-decorated dorm rooms and apartments, I was pretty inspired to liven up my own living space. I'm a commuter student, so I won't get to experience the whole "college dorm life" thing. As a result, I decided I wanted to treat myself and do a bit of redecorating. It's definitely not the same as personalizing a dorm room (since you can't show it off to floormates and friends), but at least it's something. After all, the pros of commuting include having my room all to myself as well as plenty of space.

So far everything is still a work in progress. I'm really happy that my succulents are still alive (I'd be disappointed in myself if they weren't). I got the idea from Apartment Therapy. The plants are really tiny and cute and I think having a little bit of green in any room is refreshing. Succulents are super low maintenance, too, once you get them settled in.

The other day, after stopping by school to pick up my ID card and textbooks, I decided I wanted to visit downtown's Recycle Bookstore. While trying to find parking I spotted a little thrift store, Elefante Blanco, and decided I'd check it out too. It was a really nice little nonprofit boutique that supports Rotary International. They had clothes, shoes, books, LPs ($1 each!), costume jewelry, and many other vintage knick-knacks and trinkets. I think I'm a little in love with the place. They had a decent selection of shoes in the size 5 1/2 which is amazing because I never find shoes in my size when I go thrifting! I didn't want to spend a lot of money and only bought two Pottery Barn cloth napkins (49 cents each) with a really nice blue pattern on them. I don't really know how I want to use them to decorate my room yet, but for the time being they're hanging over my bookshelf. They look pretty sitting there, but I'm sure I'll find an even better use for them soon.

It's not likely that I'll be able to do much else since school's starting (and my goodness there are so many activities planned for freshmen during the next few weeks), but I'm making it an ongoing project for when I have free time at home.

outshine it

Inspiration for the week of 9/15-9/21:

• 1972 by Noritaka Minami
• "The powerful and important thing about spoken word is, it doesn't matter what it looks like on paper. It's about what it sounds like when you say it out loud" — [the wonderful, lovely, amazing] Sarah Kay, via Education Week
• "Never apologize for your course of study — outshine it." — (I am so grateful for this quote. The posts on this Tumbleog honestly made me tear up after reading through the "English major success" tag.)
• the lovely Nancy H. for motivating me to keep "blogblogging"

Nutella cravings, among other things

This week's inspiration, favorite discoveries — generally just things I'm especially grateful for.

• tostada con tomate (using gluten-free bread, grape tomatoes, and a drizzle of honey)
• a bowl of granola + a spoonful of Nutella
• Becky May
• Joshua Saunders's music box pieces
• the sounds of autumn from Stijn's bedroom window in Europe
• cherry lip balm
• 101 Vultures by Alex Winston
• Slumflower

There's still about a week before I start school but I'm already spending a lot of quality time at the public library! The other day I finished A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and am working my way through Joyce's Dubliners. I've been meaning to pick it up for ages after reading "Araby" and "The Boarding House" in last year's literature textbook. 

The other books I took with me are Taipei by Tao Lin, Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, and How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers. Looking forward to powering through them before the excitement of my first quarter in college begins! I might write some reflections on the books, if I feel like it.

I also pulled out an old sketchbook I'd bought years ago and started filling its pages again. I've done some watercolors and collages in it already, as well as a bunch of lists and quick sketches. I found a list of journal ideas online and quickly jotted down a short story (more like a piece of flash fiction, really) using the prompt, "Write a work that intersperses love with landlords." It's pretty crazy, but I'm partially satisfied with what I ended up with. You can read it here.

speaking slowly

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