2012 Favorites

Film: Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook

Television Show: Doctor Who, Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Book: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Person: Jennifer Lawrence

YouTuber: Casey Neistat

Mainstream Song: Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men

Website (other than YouTube): Tumblr

Gadget: iPhone

Class in School: History

Store: Urban Outfitters

Café: Susie Cakes (San Francisco)

Candy: Altoids

Drink: Water

Color: Green

words//travel

I follow a great blog on Tumblr, and a while ago she posted a word/travel tag in which you write a few sentences about how you associate travel/experiences while traveling with a particular word. So I did it. 

14: asylum

Russia. I'm not an expect on Russian geography, but the area where there are a lot of secret spies would remind me of an asylum. Cold and snowy. I feel like there would be some type of horrific, abusive asylum in the middle of Russia. No offense to people in Russia, or anything.

27: cafe

Paris. I wish I kept a record of all the cafe's (or restaurants in general) that we ate at while in Paris. The most visited cafe was Paul's, which had delicious pastries and small tables. J'adore Parisian cafe's. 

21: yacht

NV/AZ area. Over time I've watched many travel specials on yachts. One of the locations I remember seeing yachts sail were in the canyon-y areas of the Southwest. 

16: oil

Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill. Oil is just disgusting, unless it's the olive kind. Or maybe I associate oil Italy, since olives are grown there.  Wait, what?

9: laugh

Roller coasters. They're fun and exciting. 

10: padlock

Los Angeles. Padlocks aren't particularly pretty, and neither is most of LA. Also, Ke$ha lives in the LA.

17: clay

Northern woods. Native American's fascinate me. Before the Westerner's came to destroy their way of life, it seems as if the Native's had such a nice, laid back, caveman-esque life. I wrote a few chapters for a fictional novel about Native Americans a few years back, and I'm still just as fascinated with their way of life. I imagine them living in the woods with tall trees, getting water from the stream, making clay to share with family...that sounds sort of like Katniss Everdeen's life. Not that her life is in any way glamarous and fun. But..eh...understand..?

8: radar

American highways. Radar is such a technological word, and when I'm on the highway I always feel like I'm on a 'radar'. Everything's monitored and watched and planned. 

3: beach

See this post. Or this video.

20: frost

Vancouver, BC. A few months ago, I was introduced to twoaftertwenty (a great photo blog by a college graduate), who made a few posts about her trip in Vancouver and British Columbia in general. The snow and frost fascinates me, as do the animals that inhabit those areas. I really want to go to Vancouver in the winter, as I do for Canada and some Northern European country. Incase you didn't know, I love snow, and since I usually travel in the summer I don't travel to places with snow! Hmu, North North America. 

An Article.

Every month, a compilation of teen writing comes to me via mail. This month, there was an article that I could relate to.

Click here to read it. It's about introverts. 

the 20's of november

On Wednesday (November 21), after arriving to the apartment after a long car ride, we were soon greeted with a beautiful sunset. It didn't look how an industrialized, post-steel city should look, but it was nature-ful nonetheless.

And then, on Thanksgiving day, we woke up to SUNSUNSUNSUN.

I've never been the biggest fan of Thanksgiving food, even though the holiday itself is one of my favorites. The turkey seems to be dry, I don't like patatoes or gravy, and I never get to eat any pie.

My favorite aspect of Thanksgiving is the history of it. When I was in grade school, I wrote an extensive story on Native Americans living in the 16th century, becuase I wanted their (in my mind) glamarous lifestyle of living in the woods, wading in rivers, and venturing into the wild. Thanksgiving--eating the harvest in the forest--was part of this awing lifestyle, I guess.

Two days later, on Saturday, there was snow. I took a walk through the snow, drove through the snow, and stared at the snow. J'aime quand il neige.

Pittsburgh; Thanksgiving, 2012

Thoughts from Sandy

A severe weather warning has been issued for a better part of the Northeast. Apparently, a devastating storm--Hurricane Sandy--is going to hit hard.

10/26/12
In history class, Mr. D briefly talked about the chance of no school on Monday, and of course a few kids asked why that was. He responded "Hurricane Sandy" and the whole class started laughing. Sandy? I'm so scared.

10/27/12
I expected it to be terribly overcast, but there was a portion of the day when the sun was out and shining. Of course, I did have my shiny new toy to distract me from the looming clouds... Although in the morning it was really really nice outside. I hope our power doesn't go out, because everyone is saying Sandy will knock it out.

10/28/12
Now there is no school on Monday or Tuesday. It's pretty cloudy outside, but Sandy is supposed to hit tonight.

10/29/12
If I wasn't aware that there was a hurricane, I'd think that it was just a really rainy day. Wait--as I'm writing this, the wind is picking up. Apparently TONIGHT Sandy is going to hit. Didn't they say that last night though?
Time has passed, and it's really really windy.

10/30/12
Since I know how worried you were, you'll be relieved to know that I wasn't hit hard by the storm. The power didn't even go out (which is very surprising considering the usual quality of our energy provider). Obviously, I hope that New Jersey's beaches-which I flock to each summer-and their inhabitants recover quickly.

With regards to the b/w photographs, they were each taken within a few moments of each other, so if you put them side by side you'll notice the bamboo moving quite drastically.

Big News...

FOR ME, at least!

Two nights ago (Thursday evening), I ordered an iPhone 5 to be shipped to the Apple Store near my house. On Friday afternoon I went to pick up my iPhone, and I got it. Writing this out makes it seem much less exciting and grand than it actually was, and I keep expecting an unfortunate plot twist to make it's way into this story, but NOPE.

I got my first every smartphone on October 26, 2012. And I absolutely LOVE IT!

Since I don't want this to become a tech blog--which it very easily could--I'll leave it at that.

Goodbye.

The Preppiest of the Preppy

I believe that a few months ago I wrote about a little documentary I found via Netflix (The September Issue). Maybe yesterday I discovered a reality show about a couple of wealthy teenagers who live in Manhattan. It's like the real life Gossip Girl--IT'S SO COOL!

Since there's only 8 episodes in the series, I've been watching the show in small increments, since I don't want it to end. I just love watching the upper-upper 1% (as Camille Hughes says) live their life. I don't care how disgusting their lifestyle can be, it's a cool show.

Keep in mind, it's still pretty bad quality (just like all the shows I enjoy). It's simply a guilty pleasure.

If you want to check out this show, it's called NYC Prep. This has been a recommendation by Sam.

The Four Seasons

Summer
-No school
-When I usually travel the most
-Free time for: YouTube, Reading, Organizing
-Sunlight all day
-The start of a new school year
_________________
-School exams
-Waaay too hot
-Boredom
-Scary work

Autumn
-"sweater weather"
-Pretty colors
-My birthday
-Fan gets turned off
_________________
-Schoolwork
-Weird mix of summer and winter
-Nausea


Winter
-Cold weather
-Cozy environment
-Snow (although not this past winter)
-Hot cocoa
-Winter Break
_________________
-Exams
-Schoolwork
-Sadness when no snow
-Sickness

Spring
-Nice change of weather
-Pretty outside
-Spring Break
-Optimism of school soon ending
_________________
-Too much rain
-Often too hot
-Fan must again be turned on

PLACES: a list

For around a year I've had a list of places I want to visit/have visited. Some of these locations are places I frequently visit but can still consider really cool, such as New York. Alsoooo, airports don't count as having been to someplace(referring to LAX + Reykjavik).

Alaska
China

Edinburgh

Bermuda

New Zealand

Moscow

Hawaii

London

Chicago

Barcelona

Paris

Rome

Los Angeles

Grand Canyon

Amsterdam

New York City

African Safari

Hong Kong
Iceland

Tokyo

Dubai

Zurich

B.C. (Canada)

Seeing Fall

9/8/12

Over the past two weeks, despite the disgusting heat and humidity, I've been getting out of the house for school. This summer I sometimes didn't get out for days at a time, but I still managed to complain about the humid weather cursing the planet. Now that I actually interact with the outdoors on a regular basis I have a rightful reason to complain; THE WEATHER TRULY DOES SUCK.

Worse than the fact that summer's have--and will always be--hot is that I'm starting to see the leaves change. The transformation is gradual, and sometimes only one leaf on a tree is auburn, but still. When the leaves get pretty before the weather gets bearable, fall flies right by. Boo-hoo.

9/9/12
Wow, last night there was a crazy storm and when I woke up this morning, everything was beautiful and 60 degrees. For at least today the above paragraphs do not apply. Happy (maybe/almost) Fall! 

A Nice Song

Autumn + Manhattan

la cocotte staub

In early July while on a quick trip to Pittsburgh, this was purchased.

Sunset

My favorite aspect of writing is that you can transform your thoughts into words, and those words can be altered and edited to make a beautiful product in the end. But whenever I have a thoughtful message to share with the internet I get stuck trying to transform my thoughts into eloquent words. So I don't end  up writing anything.

A contributing problem to my lack of motivation to write is that the blogs I follow are absurdly amazing at getting a message across via a keyboard. By reading their blogs, do I achieve a sense of accomplishment, as though I've created the content I'm--in reality--yearning to own? I dunno. Quite possibly, I'll never be able to write like the particular person I'm mostly referring to.

I've felt this way about words for a while, but what really brought this subject to light is my 2013 school orientation (which I attended just last week). My S1 English teacher was blabbering on about how the first semester of Honors English focuses on writing, not analysis, which I'm perfectly fine with.    Et le prof had the class do a warm-up, and I got so scared that I'd have to read out loud what I wrote, which got me thinking about the above sentences.

It's interesting how little thoughts take so long to explain and understand once words get involved.

Margate, Bay View; 8/18/12

Wine Country

Hello & welcome to the FINAL INSTALLMENT of the N. Cali Project.

We stopped in a cute town on the way to Quivera. I bought these cakes at a bakery and took a picture of them. It turned out like that *points to above picture*. No editing needed.

I absolutely adored Wine Country. The orchards were beautiful, the air was so clear, and there were chickens!

If you clicked on all these posts, I sincerely hope you enjoyed looking at the images. I hope to post more photos of my travels in the future, but not for a little while. At the moment, this blog has a severe case of photographic overdose.

8

San Francisco.

This man (who, by the way, has no teeth), upon noticing me and my sister walking up to the pelican, offered us to pet the bird. (To clarify; the pelican is not owned by this man. It follows him around, looks at him, but is not a domesticated animal.) We hastily declined. And then ran off to the Golden Gate Bridge.

One of my favorite YouTuber's, Marion, made a video documenting her favorite part of Los Angeles...downtown LA. While I appreciated the video, I never understood what it was like to prefer the 'plain and boring' financial part of a city. The financial district of San Francisco showed me what that meant, and I definitely prefer this part of San Francisco to any other.

SUSIE CAKES. Best bakery I've ever been to. Nicest employees I've ever met. Convenient-ist location  to our apartment.

'Ulcatraz. [Pronounced: Yule-cuh-traz]

The fanciest diner I've ever been to. Also the best. I got some good ole' macaroni and cheese.

All in all, I didn't like San Francisco. I have always, and will always continue to aspire to living in a city, but not San Francisco. It's not like New York, Paris, or London (all of which I've had the pleasure of visiting). The three cities just mentioned are considered the greatest in the world--and with good reasoning. I don't feel the way I feel in New York or Paris when I walk through the streets in San Francisco.

I never want to leave New York. As we arrived at SFO, I was relieved that I was leaving.

BIG Sur

These tree roots remind me of the crazy trees in The Wizard of Oz. Now that I think about it, a lot of things in California remind me of the arts...Carmel/Hansel, Lobos/Seuss, Pfeiffer/Oz

Here we have Pfeiffer Beach. I'm so glad we went here early in the morning (while the fog was still blocking the sun), because without the fog, it's just a beach with big rocks. The fog adds an element of fantasy, mystery, and beauty.

Many miles later, we took a small hike in a forest. I don't remember the name of the forest, but I do remember a special bird we [cleverly] named Bluebird. Bluebird likes to be fed almonds.

This is the end of the nature-y parts of the trip. Boo-hoo.

Stay tuned next week to find out where Phase 8 will take us. Thank you, and goodnight.