let's talk

ok i'm totally aware that my blogs lack real substance.  on the phone with andy, i came up with the phrase "epidermal writing"  meaning.. only skin or surface deep.  i should patent that.  yes, no, maybe so?  anyway, i came up with a lot on the phone with andy for two hours tonight actually.  we talked about everything from blagging to existence to capitalism.  it was some of the most stimulating conversation i've had in i don't know how long.  its amazing how much i can spew out when someone i'm ultra comfortable with lets me talk.  its probably record breaking.  not that they have records for talking, but if they did, i would definitely be a contender, especially when i'm excited and have multiple thoughts going on at once.  when i speak freely, its like there is no brake between my brain and my mouth.  literally, you are hearing the thoughts as i think them.  i articulate myself out loud rather than compose what i'm going to say if some one is sending me vibes that they are truly listening and we're decently close.  so talking to andy, there is no fear of any type of awkwardness, so he gets/has to hear me sort my ideas out.  even tho my blogs are unoriginal and blah-ish, dont be fooled, i'm deeper than that.  i am good at thinking out loud.  writing, now thats a problem.  something gets lost along the way between my thoughts and the pen or keyboard.  i think its because everything in my head is moving at lightning speed and i can't possibly write fast enough to capture it.  maybe i am easily bored or distracted or something because i will have a fleeting, exhilarating, exciting and interesting thought, but if i try to write it out, before the first word is down, my awesome thought has escaped me to a far off galaxy.  i can remember what it was about, but i so quickly forget how it made me feel at the moment that i experienced it.  it is gone, lost forever sadly.  so the end result is a sentence that is possibly mildly intriguing and "cute" at best.  never really something too good.  luckily tho, i've got a mouth that can move as fast as my mind so i'm able to articulate my thoughts in that way.  i arrive at decent conclusions thinking about things out loud.  its really terrible because its what you write down that counts.  it sucked in "writing the essay" first sememster because while i did really well on all my assignments and i'm pretty sure lorraine doran liked what i had to say in class, when it came time to do my final papers, i just couldn't manage to get the complicated whirlwind that was my thoughts down on paper.  as a result, my essays just weren't that good.  granted, they had not too bad ideas fueling them, but they remained trapped in my mind.  i wish i could express myself in a tangible way.  there's painting but its not as forward as writing.  i wish i could write blogs about what is REALLY happening in my head.  maybe i should have an audio blog hahaha, like a podcast lol.  but reallly, that wouldn't help things.  i already know how to talk.  i want to be able to express myself via writing better.  and its just not happening.  i can tell you everything i'm doing wrong, but i can't fix it.  andy's being really adorable with ideas and stuff and i think i will try them.  i'm going to start reading the new york times again, but this time, not just skimming the stories for the news, i'm going to try and see how and why journalists write the way they do.  also andy is suppposed to lend me this awesome book on how cut out the "fat" in your writing if he can find it.  that is awesome.  i hope it helps.  however, i do feel like i know why good writing is good writing, i just can't seem to do it myself.  i find it easier to simply talk out loud about things as the thoughts and ideas are rushing through me.  however, you may or may not have seen this side of me.  if you at least know me, you've probably seen it happen sometimes when something excites me.. but if you're really close to me.. i'm so incredibly sorry for how much of your life is consumed by my voice.  i'll try to shut up a bit and work on the writing thing.  writing is a skill, anyone can talk.

- fantabulous rapper?  no.  rantabulous yapper.

is this the place i've been dreaming of?

Reasons I am Smiling:

1) i spent 9 hours with my mom yesterday, and no bickering

- i had to take her to the indian consulate to get a visa for her trip to india

-  for once, we were on my turf and she couldn't pretend like she knew better than me.. hence we got along

2) i bought sa-weet earrings

- ok, admittedly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but... yay!

3) jessie gave me part two of her gift, and it was the most amazing thing ever

- it looks like a book, but it opens up into this beautifully designed thing covered with memorable pictures and birthday wishes from a few of my closer friends

- you are so creative jyoh!  i love it

4) andy remembers the exact moment we transitioned from mere acquaintance to friends

- "50 cents a pop!"

5) my brother said i was a great sister

- awwww ^_^

6) i rode the staten island ferry 

- the best part is its free

- wheeeeee!

7) i ate a warm and gooey peanut butter cup cookie

- i don't know if i've ever had a sweetness craving satisfied so... satisfactorexcellently

8) my bus driver was awesome and made lame jokes

- normally they never talk, but this driver was sooo adorable

9) joe showed up in front of my house at midnight to say bye before leaving for uva

- "number four, are you home?  because two dolla is outside"

- two dolla is my favorite OB rapper... he's four times as good as 50 cent

10) my eyesight only got a little worse this year 

- and i'm switching to 2-week lenses, woooo

11) raghav and i finally hung out 

- we went to starbucks at b&n and he ordered the java chip frapp like he always does

- its kind of weirdly comforting knowing what he's going to order haha - sort of like a "some things never change" type deal

last and super duper-est:

12) I LOVE MY DORM ROOM!

- thats the view from just one of the seven or so windows

- you can also see the empire state building to the left of me!

- and it all only gets better at night ;)

together, we burn it up!

since james and i have birthdays two days apart, the same-ish friends, and are in love, why wouldn't we celebrate our birthdays together?  instead of a big party like we had last year, we decided on a more tame birthday dinner.  unfortunately, a lot of awesome folks had work, class, were away, etc etc.  we still got a pretty lovely group together and had a really nice, relaxed time - it was just what i wanted.  these large group gatherings naturally happen less often than they used to during high  school, so it was great having a bunch of us being together again.  it's so easy to get caught up and forget just how much i miss some of these people.  ahh and i have to leave them again in a few weeks :(.  i love life at school to death, but i hate leaving behind my home friends.  we've grown up together.  obviously they may not know as much about me as the people that i've lived with at college, but they just know you in a different way.  its unexplainable, but its just such a casual, loving relationship i have with these people.  its a comfortable that can only be achieved through knowing each other for years.  even as we've all grown and changed, we still manage to have the same group dynamic.  yay for classic friends!  we tried to think of something to do after dinner but it was either:  too lame, we had too many people, we were underage, or parents were home.  sooo, we just stuck around the restaurant chatting it up before heading our separate ways.  BUT... not before having dessert of course.  now, you all know i LOVE peanut butter, but did you know, i also loveee cookie dough?  well, imagine my pure ecstacy and joy when i saw behind the glass case a cheesecake with the label "chocolate peanut butter cookie dough."  i dont think i could make something that good up.  me and james didn't think twice about ordering it for the table :P.  indulgent would be an under-exaggeration of the experience.  just for kicks, anna asked me for a ride tonight even tho she has a car.  we really haven't hung out all that much, but she's an interesting character fosho.  i know there are people that have issues with her, but they just don't understand her.  she doesn't always think before she speaks and tends to be guarded, but once you give her a chance, she's kickass.  when the two of us got into my camry to drive home, she stopped me as i was about to turn on the always oh so disappointing radio to pull out a tape of gangster rap that she keeps in her purse... badass!  so what did we do?  of course we rolled down the windows (literally, my car's just that old and ghetto you have to do it manually),  and we blasted that shit the whole ride home - ballllllllllllin!  we also ditched english in favor of ghetto french while taking pictures that could have easily caused near death experiences the whole ride.  well, what's life without a little risk, right?

je l'aime quand vous m'appelez grand poppa!  jetez vos mains dans le ciel si vous etes un jouer vrai!  .. je vois quelques dames ce soir cela qui devrait avoir mon bebe, bay-bee!

bless your soul, you really think you're in control?

i spent the evening with two things i can't resist, bubble tea and a friend. not just any bubble tea, but chocolate peanut butter, and not just any friend, but david zas. what i love about david is we didn't go to the same high school, we met by chance through mutual friends, we haven't hung out all that often, but we still somehow manage to oh so effortlessly have the most intriguing, intimate, and personal conversations when we are together. there's just something about him i trust. when i speak, i know he's really listening. i feel the same way when i talk to jon liao, whom introduced me to david. and i wouldn't even know jon if it weren't for jessie! jon and i spent part of our coffee excursion last week pondering aloud to ourselves where'd we'd be at the moment if jessie hadn't invited him along to that FBLA dinner senior year. i don't even want to get into how different my life would be without jessie in it, its too scary to think about. if mr. celentano hadn't put us in the same group back in gov, i wonder who my roommate would have been? the entirety of my college experience would have undoubtedly been altered. if the scheduling gods hadn't given upreet and i identical schedules in the eighth grade, who would my best friend be? the whole chaos theory or "butterfly effect" is crazily intriguing. hell, if i'd just been on a different floor of rubin hall, it would totally warp my current reality. it wouldn't be a push to say that i might altogether be a different person seeing as college was my first true opportunity to experience complete, uninhibited freedom allowing myself to discover who i really was without all the rules holding me back. was the me i am now underneath it all from the start? was she going to come out one way or the other? or did the people i met, the places we went, and the things we did mold me into who i am? i imagine its an unpredictable mingling of both. i couldn't begin to conceive an alternate life than the one in which i am presently familiar, but this particular conciousness that i've adopted as my view of the world is so fragile. certain exact, minute moments had to have happened precisely in the way they did for me to be where i am. if it weren't for meeting jessie and andy, i wouldn't even be sitting here writing this entry right now because it was their writing which inspired me to open this blog. initial conditions lead to an exponential growth in our lives, but its weird that seemingly trivial details can have such a profound influence on which direction that growth is. i'm aware that this precise thought has been rehashed countless times, but it still trips me out.

who knew life would move this fast?

currently digging: "family business" - kanye west

Happy 19th to David Lin and I! (..yesterday that is)

18 is like woahhh, i'm eeeeiIGHHHttttttttEEEEEN!! and twenty is like damn, ive been alive two decades now! .. but then again, nineteen is the last year of teen-dom. i'm pretty nonchalant about the whole deal.

the highlight was upreet called me alllllll the way from india not only at midnight to be the first to wish me a happy birthday, but also the next midnight to be the last! awwww, she is truly the bestest =)

other than that, i kept it low key at home for the day then went out for a movie and dinner. there was nothing playing . i had already seen the simpsons movie. we saw the bourne ultimatum. it was OK. it had its moments, but i absolutely would not reccomend it or watch it again. they tried so hard to distract me from their unintriguing plot with action scenes and fancy camera work. honestly, the highlight was when matt damon took the same escalator that i take to get to my gate at port authority. woot! we should have seen i now pronounce you chuck and larry or something.

dinner was alright. i dont want to say anything bad, so i'll just leave it at my mom was sweet. i'm looking forward to the friend and family get togethers this weekend tho, those should go more desirably.

nyu gave me a birthday gift sort of! the financial thingy ma bobber came yesterday, and they gave me another scholarship; 5,000 more a year (sweetness). all dad had to say tho was, "couldn't you get more?" or "why don't you transfer to rutgers?" -_-
i know a lot of indian parents really push their kids to succeed, but not mine. to college, dad was like, "can't you go to a two year school?"
during high school once, he took away my calc book while i was doing my homework and told me i could have it back after i finished cleaning the houseeee. what a freaking joke.

other joke-like things in my life include having to use my desktop all week. my macbook is being fixed up a bit for being mentally deficient. the twenty-something apple "genius" who handled my case was quite obviously stoned.

i miss my mac-daddy :(

grand theft walrus

i bought the sookie-est shirt today..
however, please note that the peanut butter is the pretty hot and tempting, really ridiculously good looking (and tasting) one in the relationship. jelly's merely cute.

..why are my brother and i singing "million tears" by groove coverage right now?
woaaa ohh oh oh, a million tears for you!

ok, time for us to watch the office! (i've got a crush on jim)
Be Professional!

a candle's fickle flame

from jamie's recent "blog or die" remarks, i've realized i'm already not keeping up with this as much as I intended too.. (almost every day was the goal)

well, at the risk of being murdered by an irish/korean air force man to be.. here i am!

hello ^_^

i spent today chillin out, maxin, relaxin all cool.  my brother and i shot some hoops and played volleyball in the backyard.  then i spent some time being depressed about how i'm too big to comfortably fit onto our swing set anymore as i awkwardly tried to propel myself on it.  even more upsetting was looking at the spot near the volleyball net where the trampoline used to be.  if my parents are really that worried about the safety issue, whyyyyyyyyyyy did they buy it in the first place?  i often contemplate dragging it out of the garage and setting it up, but knowing i'll have to dismantle it as soon as my parents see it is discouraging enough for my lazy self.

later on, my brother left to go play basketball with his hooligans.  so i had the house to myself, wheee!  i popped a cd in the seldom used stereo and let my music fill the house sans worries as i got out my painting stuff.  yay for getting lost in mellow tunes and swirling colors.  i worked on my abstract death cab for cutie tribute.. its mad strange.

it doesn't feel right, but i don't know what's missing.  the composition is also giving off awkward vibes.  i never do abstract, this is tough for me.  all the solid color also makes me nervous.  the only other abstract i've ever done was a keith herring inspired piece about two years ago.

that one's pretty straightforward.  you have to be a death cab fan to understand the one i'm working on now.  still life, landscape, reproduction - those styles have always been easier for me.  my favorite work so far this year has been my reproduction of van gogh's "cypresses."

mine came out a little brighter than his and my brushstrokes are more mellow.  his strokes were smaller with more intensity.  i love the way he painted.  i think in order to become a better painter, i need to become a better drawer - more natural and confident.  this past year, i only really did one drawing.. and it was with a no. 2 pencil on printer paper >.< 

its bad quality because its a camera phone picture.  after finishing up helping kids with their homework at icahn house, we were free to do pretty much whatever with them afterwards.  one day, one of the women there asked me to sketch a picture of her son, so that's the story behind that.

next semester, i'm taking two classes for my studio art minor.  i'm psyched to feel sort of like an art student!