The City Life

Yup. I did it. I'm here. I moved. Actually, it's almost been a week. wow.

So what's it like? how was moving in? Well in some ways it was wonderful, and in some ways it was the worst.

Day 1: Davic helped me move in (I'm so thankful! he made it way easier.) We spent the day doing some mild exploring and figuring out the bus, and ended with a way overdue heart-to-heart. That night however was the WORST.
Sleeping in a new place is hard enough for me, I'm sensitive to my environment in every way. What made it 10 times worse was the city noise that I wasn't quite used to. Buses, sirens, you name it. And the cherry on top was trying to sleep next to Davic who tossed and turned and talked in his sleep. At one point he even hit me in the head.

Day 2: I felt VILE from a lack of sleep and the nerves from my new environment. Davic wanted nothing more than to explore the city, and could barely hold still. We had to compromise, spending some of the time resting in my room, and some of the time in the shops close to it.
That afternoon I had to send him home on the train, and of course I started to feel better right around this time! We said our goodbyes and I headed back "home." My first ever solo walk in the city. And when I got back my apartment felt sad and empty. This was the saddest point of my week.  :(  BUT I was able to sleep that night, perhaps from pure exhaustion.

Day 3: I don't think I did anything this day other than grocery shop. Which by the way is not so fun when you're paying yourself...
Although that night I fell back into my normal routine and it started to make my place feel homey.

Day 4: I didn't bring a razor because I expected to just buy one at the store below me. But apparently the people here don't grow hair, because I couldn't find any razors, not even the lady kind! So I checked out google maps, and found a route to RiteAid. The trip was interesting and was my first solo adventure through the city. I got asked for change, creepily smiled at, asked for directions, and had a picture of me taken!

Day 5: Orientation day at my school. I had to wake up early, take the bus by myself for the first time, and sit through several boring lectures. Only one of which even had to do with my specific major. I being hypoglycemic and all, need protein every few hours. That didn't mix so well with the 4 or 5 lectures that kept me there until afternoon....Also I was given my supply kit which weighed 70 thousand pounds. So wobbly, dizzy, little ol me had to lug alllllll that shee-yit home on the bus. Looked like this:

Day 6: Today. The most exciting thing I did was read my book outside. (woah a semi-social setting with people there? What's gotten into you?) And make a grilled cheese sandwich.

It is feeling more and more like home. Which I'm sure will only continue. Tomorrow evening I'm going home to visit because it's been SO long.  :P And on Monday...at 8 am.....class starts. dun dun dunnnnn!

Wish me luck <3

Doodlin

Once upon a time I was a kid who spent alllll his free time doodling. I remember being around 6 or 7 and having a stack of printer paper in my bookshelf so I could draw whenever I wanted. Which was a lot.

It continued through high school where I would fill the margins of my boring school work with strange little drawings. Especially in math class, cause what else was I going to do, listen?

Sadly, in the recent years I haven't spent much time in front of paper, as most of it is spent right here at my laptop. But recently I've been "making" myself doodle for my own good. The results? Well lets have a look!

As you can see here, I may have a small disney obsession. The first didn't start out as Ariel it just kind of turned into her, and the other drawings followed.

Trying to make a layout plan for the photos above my bed. Nothing too exciting here.

This my friends, is a glimpse inside my imagination. Note the doughnut tree.

Yeesh, after not drawing realistic people for a year and a half, I can't even draw semi-realistic people... That's okay though, cause I'm sure I'll get plenty of practice with art school coming up. 

I think it could be interesting to do this regularly. see how my drawings change a grow y'know? And now I have to go get things ready for tomorrow, since I'm moving into my apartment! (ahh what? how did all that time go by already??) 

Summer Days

And oh those summer nights~   Oh wait no, this isn't going to be that song...

But since summer is coming to an end, and it officially becomes Autumn next week, I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect on my best memories from summer 2011. Possibly the very last "real" summer of my life. It might not have been my very best summer, but looking back a lot more happened than I originally thought.



I reconnected with old friends, people that I hadn't truly hung out with in a year. I saw my first big scale concert tour. I got to help take care of my god-son and watch him grow, at one point I was even seeing him every day which I've wanted for a long time.



I went out on spur-of-the moment adventures, which I didn't even realize I missed until I was dragged along this summer. I introduced my best friend to my family, which is something that has only happened about 2.5 times in my life. For the first time I had people read my blog other than my friends who I force to read it. (I even got a follower!!) And most recently I made brand new life long friends and got involved in a program that meant a lot more to anyone than I expected.


I'd say overall, even with some bumps in the road, this was quite the successful summer. :)
I'd like to thank everyone involved (what is this an award speech?) and I hope that everyone else's summer was as good, or even better than mine. And hopefully by next summer, I'll be writing about how spectacular my school year was. 

Socially Inept

 No the title is not about me. :P

  This past week my (ex)college has been hosting exchange students from Japan. It's been a lot of fun making new friends, eating free food, and practicing communicating with people who understand only a little english.

   However some people aren't so great at communicating with the students. And the problem isn't so much the language barrier, it's these people's inability to sense how the students are reacting or if they're even understanding them. One kid in particular, and by "kid" I mean 25-year-old who acts like an awkward 8th grader, was getting on my nerves. For the purpose of this rant, lets call him Mitch.

   It's really easy for me to be able to tell what another person is feeling or thinking, just by paying a little attention to their reactions or expressions. I can adjust what I'm saying, or pause to translate words accordingly. Mitch however can't seem to tell when any of this is needed.

  He starts by butting into your conversation and changing the subject to whatever he feels the need to talk about. Oh you were having a nice conversation about your favorite movies with the exchange students? Too bad, Mitch wants to talk about his life. And talk. And talk. and talk. And when the students show obvious expressions of confusion? Well just keep on talking of course!

  And while he's on a role, he'll probably throw in a few bad jokes that native english speakers don't even fully understand or find funny. You think you should butt in and try to help save the obviously uncomfortable exchange students? Good luck with that because he most likely wont let you speak for more than a few seconds. The poor students are just going have to keep awkwardly nodding while he laughs to himself and the english speakers around him roll their eyes.

 So after telling us about his life and how he wants to teach english, and how he has a friend in Japan who he teaches online, and after giving me a lesson that I didn't ask for on something I already knew, he did something that I didn't expect. He stopped talking. Haha no but seriously he gave all the students around us his business card. His BUSINESS CARD!

YOU DON'T HAVE A BUSINESS! YOU TALK WITH PEOPLE ON SKYPE FOR FREE AND LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS. Your only "business" is making people feel uncomfortable and awkward. And if you were to charge for that you'd be rich.

  And when I thought he would be the worst of my troubles I was wrong. Today we had a BBQ with the Japanese students at a local park. Who did Mitch bring? His dad. Mitch Sr, who happens to be EVEN WORSE AND MORE UNAWARE OF PEOPLE'S DISCOMFORT!!!!

After probably 30 minutes of some of my favorite exchange students standing there nodding their heads, I decided to try and go rescue them. They were noticeably distressed and wanted to leave, but he was too busy making jokes about wigwams to see that.

 At one point he decided he needed to help my best exchange friend with her english. He pointed to her water bottle and asked "what is this?" She confidently answered "water!" because for the first time in the conversation he said something she could understand. Um okay normal enough I guess. But he proceeded to ask her "Is it water? or is it way-ter" which confused her and made her think she answered wrong. He asked her again "why is it pronounced wah-ter and not way-ter?"

I'm sorry, but HOW is asking things like that supposed to help someone learn english? If anything he was overwhelming them.

And since I know most people will see this giant block of text and run the other way, here's a completely unrelated picture:

I has apartment. And there's pictures this time!

So last weekend I visited my apartment (that I'm paying for without living in yet...) for the second time. My mattress was SUPPOSED to be delivered but there were problems with finding the correct model, and long story short, I'll be getting a more expensive version for the same price instead.

And this time I brought my 18-55 lens! Less sharpness but hey, at least I was able to fit whole walls into frame. And it's not like I was trying for actual photography here anyway.

So without further adieu, here are some photos of my empty apartment. Try to contain your excitement.

Main room/bedroom/livingroom/hallwayishthing:

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

Coat Closet Mylinh's new house (modeled by my lovely mother):

I love it, probably because it's MINE. But the one thing I wish I could change about it is the doors. They're this strange orangey color...But I guess every apartment has SOMETHING.

As we were leaving I was walking down the steps with my arms full of bags and boxes, my mom tired and not feeling well, but my artistic side kicked in and I decided I had to try taking a long exposure night photo.

It's outside in the courtyard, which is taken care of and managed better than any other apartment I've lived in.

Now I just need to find furniture...

盆踊り2011

It seems like I was just at last year's bonodori festival, which my friends convinced me to go to for the first time in years. We ate, we laughed, they danced. Oh and of course there were the beautiful lanterns we put in the water only to have the wind blow them back towards us.

But this year's festival rolled around quicker than I expected, and of course I had to go because Davic and I decided to make it a tradition. This time we brought his little brother Alex, and I came equipped with camera in hand. :)

But before the festival, we decided to take a little walk around the Capitol.


Don't let this fool you, it took a few tries to get him to actually hug me...




According to Alex, these are for climbing.








The brothers used this place to run around and jump from ledge to ledge


While I stayed on the ground and squinted so beautifully.


Again with the beauty! How do I do it?







Davic took this shot, and I'm pretty sure he just randomly snapped it, but I love how it turned out.

I don't even know.


Superhero?




Our beautiful city. Oh wait ignore the gross water...


I had no idea these little tomatoes were growing up there on top of the hill.



And by then the festival had already started. Although there still wasn't much happening quite yet, so what did we do? Got food of course! I wanted yakitori, but they were somehow out already...even though the festival was just starting. So instead I settled for:


It was underwhelming...if only our humble little bondori had more than one food booth.




So after watching some taiko and martial arts, Alex was getting bored. Like he always does. He wanted something more "actiony" so he told us he was going to go run around in the parking lot. Like literally, he went and ran in circles.


THIS is what will happen if you create a video game addict from a young age.

I was EXTREMELY disappointed that there was no lantern ceremony this year! I mean, isn't that the whole main point of bonodori?? The lanterns to guide the spirits?? And I was so looking forward to taking some awesome night pictures of the lanterns in the water.

But as a replacement, they had a tree set up where for a dollar (which was to be donated to earthquake relief in Japan) you got a strip of paper on which you could write a wish or prayer. I wasn't that excited over it at the time, but I ended up getting some of my favorite photos EVER out of the deal. :) Take a look...







And towards the end, what could possibly be considered the highlight of the festival happened. The dancing.



Last year most of my friends danced while I and another friend laughed and took pictures. Fun enough for my low standards. And this year I had full intentions to take video footage of Davic Making a fool of himself. But instead something else happened. Something unusual.

I donno if it was the hostess' speech about how everyone is stupid either way, "so you might as well dance", or Davic's strange ability to get me to do things I normally wouldn't. Or maybe it was my resolution to care less about what people think, but whatever it was, I danced. And I liked it.

After dancing the night away and letting a 6-year-old use my $700 camera that I'm WAY overprotective of, bonodori 11 was over.


Bye until next year obon festival. <3
If you like my photos and want to see the entire set, make sure to check out my flickr

Baby Update + An Apartment Of My Own

Also, I officially have an apartment now. I brought my camera expecting to take magnificent realestate-quality photos to show off my new place. But then I realized my 50mm lens is cropped waaay too closely for that and the most I could get was portions of walls at a time...so instead, here's a picture of my new mug from Daiso. :)