New Year's Resolution?

I can't think of any.

Maybe its because my brain is too stuffed with turkey, mash potatoes,and tea eggs (actually, I hate turkey but I eat it anyways just to feel some holiday spirit). My resolution for the rest of the day is to clean my room because my desk is so messy that im reaching under a pile of crap to type this entry with my keyboard. Excuse any spelling mistakes because I can barely see my keyboard right now.

Thankfully, I've dedicated most of my winter break working on projects for my cousins restaurant (EC Kitchen @ Portland OR). I've spent two weeks building the website with my ridiculously amateur html and css skills. After going through a bazillion trial and errors, I've finally managed to set up something that works 'decently'. The layout ended up looking like..... my previous blog layout (uh oh). It will be launched soon. For now im in charge of updating the facebook page (here). I also made a twitter despite not having one myself... but I have no idea how to use it for marketing purposes. Im also in charge of taking photos of the food, my cousin owns a Nikon D80 and all I can say is...the difference between a point/shoot camera and a DSLR is like rat's poo and fairy dust. I was extremely excited to finally be able to play around with a DSLR and now I feel like burning my sony cyber shot every time I see the results.

Here are some of the random photos I took for testing. Food photos are on the facebook page and will soon be on the website as well.

Extremely delicious food!! Seriously, im not bias, but you can't find this kind of high quality and authentic Chinese/Taiwanese food anywhere in Portland (maybe even Oregon).

This is where I usually sit with my antique macbook when im hanging around at the restaurant.

Anywhoo... before I move on with other random pictures I wanted to share my experience with last term's acting class. On the first day the instructor announced that we were all going to talk facing the camera and then watch/critique our scenes. At that moment I quietly declared in my head that I would go straight to my advisor and drop the course (but I stayed because I'll have to take it eventually, why not get it over with). This might sound ridiculous, but I've always avoided video cameras...for years and years. I would rather be forced to do a speech in front of a million people than to speak in front of a video camera and be forced to hear/watch myself talk...let alone ACT in front of the camera. It was definitely a class I dreaded attending every week....but watching myself on film sort of forced me to accept all the flaws I was afraid I had. Its a bit difficult to explain, but basically its something like this- we (ourselves) never really know what we truly look or sound like because the mirror is only a 'reflection' of ourselves and our own voice doesn't sound the way we think it does...etc. I always knew I had a lot of flaws I hated but never knew what it looked or sounded like to others...and finally, I was forced to see what im 'really' like through another perspective. Not happy with the results, but nothing I can do about it so time to move on.

One thing I learned from this course is that I can never be and will never be an actress. I didn’t think I could possibly be any worse than Kim Hyun Joong or Kristine Stewart.... but turns out im even worse than the two of them combined! Eventually it was like, ‘okay I feel so humiliated to the point where I cannot be humiliated any further’. Then I closed my eyes and dived into the water despite not knowing how to swim (wow miso poetic). I realized that acting is definitely a lot harder than what most people would think. The feeling of getting into your own character is very interesting, we all experienced it slightly after many NGs and it definitely feels shocking when you've finished with your scene. Its like "wait...what? was that really me??" When you're given a character, the way she/he walks, talks, reacts, every little tiny detail defines the character's personality and background. How well you act depends on how well you understand your character. The rest is just reacting in the shoes of your character. Okay, im not acting instructor and im a crap actress because I had a tough time breaking out of my shell, but acting class was an 'interesting' experience to say at the least...im surprised I haven't shot myself in the head during the course but im just glad I got it over with.

On with random photos!

So after I started project 360 (i've already failed it), I discovered this mini watercolor on-the-go set and was like OMFGIWANT. But its freaking expensive so I decided to just buy a watercolor brush. Basically, you add water into the body of the brush and you can paint with watercolor anywhere (without carrying a cup everywhere). I haven't test mine out yet, I actually completely forgot about it until now.

I have a few more pages but I haven't taken pictures of those yet. I feel like I should practice drawing more animation style characters like rubberhose style (because I love the oldschool feel). I haven't drawn in the notebook since the term ended so I have a lot of pages to make up.

YAY another picture of my fugly ramen lunch! I tried to improve the look of it this time and added more toppings. Picture didn't turn out appetizing at all...half an egg, a dumpling, an exploding fish ball (okay that sounds wrong, its actually a ball made of fish paste and inside is roe sauce which may explode everywhere when you bite into it), ham, seaweed, and korean marinaded anchovies.

Blueberry muffins made with Trader Joe's blueberry muffin mix. Deliciousssss, especially when the top is crispy and warm right out of the oven.

My aunt brought me some to-go from Saburo's (extremely popular sushi place in Portland). Their seafood is so fresh and delicious, plus each piece is huuge. The seared salmon and eel is amazingggg. I've been craving for their soft shelled crab sushi for weeks...

FINALLY had a chance to try the famous Shin Ramyun. All I can say is...its spicy. Nothing amazing although im impressed by its circular shape. I actually got extremely sick after eating this, but that might be because I was already getting sick and the spicy msg just triggered a bad reaction in my throat (literally could not talk after eating this).

This is the brand of ramen I always eat. Its like the shin ramyun of Hong Kong. The photo isn't the original flavor which comes with delicious seasame oil.

My parents were obsessed with these green tea noodles. They literally went to the supermarket and cleared its entire stock of green tea noodles. They were eating it almost everyday and now im just plain sick of them. Thankfully, they aren't sold in stores anymore (although I think they will be restocked soon). Dont get me wrong, its really good and the noodles are very high quality for ramen.

How I cook my ramen: I don't like cracking an egg in my noodles like most people do because it makes the soup all thick and the noodles all distorted. I always add water from my water boiler to a bowl, mix msg/sauce/etc, and when the noodles are done I strain out the water and add noodles in my bowl of fresh hot water. I usually add some ham, mushrooms, seaweed, and if im not lazy- a boiled egg. If im extremely unlazy, i'd even cook chicken stock instead of using the packet of msg. I've tried adding cheese, it tastes weird with ramen but its okay in cup noodles. I've also tried butter (this is popular in Japan), the first time was really good but the second time I added too much and it was gross.

Found out that Toys R Us were having a sale on Uglydoll products!! Came home with two uglydoll figures and two cushions (one my mom kept and the other I gave to a friend for xmas). Wish I'd bought more because I almost died on my way driving there HAHA. Okay it wasn't that bad, but I was kind of traumatized for awhile.

Found these little blind packets of hello kitty Lego's at Target. $2.99 each. Im buying more next time.

Fuego was having a 40% off sale. My sister bought me these capsule headphones...haven't test out quality yet but they're cute.

My sister got this for xmas. A Lotso plush with a strawberry scented tummy! Funny thing is we bought the same thing for our niece last year.

Hello kitty keycaps from Fuego.

If im not wrong, I've never taken a proper picture of my panda-z set. Ignore that thick blanket of dust sitting on my shelves....

Be@rbricks at the top (and a metallic qee)

Acrylic mustache vesselware cup from Sarah as xmas/bday present!! Omg i love it!

I learned how to fold a dollar bill elephant (from a video on youtube). My family were at my cousin's restaurant when a customer gave my nephew an elephant dollar bill. My dad came home with a stack of new dollar bills and told me to figure out how to fold one. I suck at origami and im no genius... so there was no way I could figure it out on my own. Nowadays you can learn anything on youtube so I cheated and looked up a tutorial. This is a crippled elephant cause I gave the nice ones to my dad.

These shoes were on sale at Aldoshoes and I couldn't decide between the 3 so I bought all of them -_-...kind of regretted it because they looked so similar. Oh well, since they're black and will match with everything in my closet. Saves me time.

I also realized that as I grow older my sense of style is becoming more tomboyish, whats up with that. Its supposed to be the other way around...

Saw these awesome notebooks on kidrobot's website. Knew I had to right click and save image.

Cute headphones I found on 9gag

More stuff from 9gag (gaaah the watermark!)

Hello Kitty x TokiDoki collection in Hong Kong's 7-11!!! You have to buy $20HKD (like 2.50 USD) and you'll get a stamp. For every 15 (i think) stamps you can get a figure. Or 5 stamps+$20hkd for one. Trying to get my cousins to get me one in HK. Y WE NO HAVE CUTE STUFF AT OUR 7-11s?!?

Okay so I have a sing-a-ma-jig still in its package and collecting dust on my desk. I bought it because I thought they were fascinating, ugly, and strange...and also because I watched a Jay Chou street performance where he incorporated one with his song. I also thought they could sing whatever tone I wanted, but obviously it wasn't that hi-tech. I saw these 'new' series online and I gotta admit, the baby set is pretty cute...

Some work I did over last term's image manipulation course.

Postcard graphic with random pictures given by the instructor. For some creepy reason this picture doesn't show up right on my itouch, it turns into a black and white photo with some strange white areas...

Two ridiculous World News magazine covers. Don't ask me where I got the ideas from... I don't know either.

Indie band album cover (main objective was to scan a photo and get rid of the dots)

Some symbols/elements to incorporate in our final project.

Final project 1-

Final project 2- I added a watermark cause im thinking of selling prints of this. Sadly, I resized and saved over the original so I'll have to redo the entire piece. I arranged the rubber ducks one by one until it formed the word RUBBER. Then I traced a photo of a rubber duck with my tablet and added accessories to them. Really bummed I don't have the original printable size anymore :(

Final project part 3-

(Progress shot of how I put that piece together)

I spent many hours working on this final piece and I probably had over 200 layers/pictures. I had a very strange feeling after I finished this piece because it felt extremely sentimental. I didn't have a clear image of what I wanted and ended up following whatever I felt like doing (I rarely work this way). Surprisingly, the result really reflected what I wanted to express- an old childhood memory. Back in the days, anything could be magical and adventurous with a little imagination. This piece have a Peter Pan-like story behind it.



OMG im finally done. Im trying to type super fast and finish up this entry because I still need to shower and then go out. Anywhoo, im finally done so off I go!

Mini post of randomness

I should really be working on my final animation project...or studying for history...or figuring out wtfork I've just learned in math today so I won't bomb my final. I've been procrastinating way too much this term. Maybe its because work+winter makes me feel like the little match girl. If I could choose I'd rather take winter term off and make up for it during summer. I feel much more motivated and (obviously) awake in school during the summer (plus free AC all day puhaha). I also recently discovered 9gag and had my soul taken away :( must refrain myself from going there until after my finals (actually its opened on my other tab and im viewing it as I write this entry) AHH THERE IS NO ESCAPE *shivers* that site is the root of all evils (or of all the reasons why I may fail my finals)!!

Anywhoo...

So I was extremely bored one day and decided to reread my old xanga blog entries. I was mindlessly skimming/reading through entries when I suddenly noticed that they were all dated back in 2009. My eyeballs popped out of its sockets and rolled to Antarctica (just had a spelling fail. thank god for spellcheck) because I couldn’t believe all those events happened 2-3 years ago!! It’s like I blinked and two years suddenly flew by with a troll face. I realized I got my car two years ago and yet I STILL do not have my license two years later (epic fail much?). I swear im not another bad asian driver, okay maybe I am but at least I haven’t run over any furry friends or Portlandia hipster bikers yet. I vow to get my license before…uh, 2013. I was speaking on the phone with my cousin a few days ago and he told me that I had broken his record because he was the only one in our family (younger generation) who got his license after 18. Holy cow. Im growing old and moldy without even realizing it. Before I know it, people are going to start getting up for me in the priority seating areas on the bus. FML.

(I usually don’t use FML but in this case I cannot find a more suitable word).

Speaking of old, im turning another year older next month. I kind of miss the good ol’ days when I would I start counting down a month before my birthday and plan out this ridiculously mind-blowing birthday party that would’ve even put Kim Kardashian’s 10 million dollar wedding to shame (and it would last even longer than that)…. but unfortunately, none of those plans actually went through. Anyways, my parents would buy me a present and hide it in their closet, but eventually they would not be able to contain their excitement and go, “WE BOUGHT YOU A PRESENT AND HID IT SOMEWHERE. YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FIND IT.” Our house is so small that it is impossible to really hide anything (if something in our house is missing it’s probably because my mom secretly donated it to Goodwill) so I always ended up finding it before my actual birthday. The night before my birthday I would be so excited fantasizing about all the presents I may receive that I wouldn’t be able to get a wink of sleep. I really miss those days because I realized that as years go by, my birthday became something that I secretly started to dread. Yeah, im still young but once you hit 18, every year after that just becomes another load of responsibility, another growing pressure to become an independent adult, and another one countless amount of these “You’re already __ years old and you’re still acting like____,” lectures from your mom. For me, another increasing amount of bewildered, poop-their-pants-shocked and omfg-are-you-kidding-me-what-kinda-illness-do-you-have expressions from people when they learn of my age. Sometimes I just want to let it quietly slip by and pretend that I will remain a kid forever : ( yeah I wish I was a bit more optimistic. I told my sister this awhile ago and she said, “You’re so ungrateful. At least you have a family who wants to celebrate your birthday with you.” and at the moment I wish she’d added a slap in my face afterwards because it made me feel so guilty. So from now on I will remind myself that even if I had to take on 100x more load of responsibility and suddenly grow white hairs, it will be worth it.

Recently, I've been writing down a lot of random thoughts on my itouch...mainly just out of boredom during my bus rides to school. I guess I will be sharing some of my gibberish here...someday.

I was planning on sharing some pictures because I don't like publishing entries without photos...but I don't have time to resize and write captions for every image (because I will fail all my finals at this rate). I need some kind of ingenious tactic to keep myself from going online- internet addiction is scary. Originally, I just wanted a head start on this entry and finish the rest later, but then it wouldn't make sense for me to publish it after my finals...so here it is.

Will drag myself to school tomorrow (Sunday) so I can finally stay focus and get something done :(

Project 360

I decided to be all pro and bought my first mini moleskine watercolor sketchbook around two years ago, but I never touched it because 1.) its freakin expensive for a tiny sketchbook, 2.) im bad at drawing on tiny paper, 3.)too busy being lazy, 4.) it looks too fancy to be touched.

So I decided to finally put this little friend to use because I realized its been a million years since I drew something thats not school related. The only time I can get myself to draw is when deadline is approaching for an assignment, otherwise im too lazy to even pick up a pencil (this is what art school does to you). Im afraid my drawing skills might start fermenting and growing mushrooms :( ....Anywhoo, I've been seeing a lot of project 365 for photographers and because im such a crap photographer, I decided to start my own project 360 for drawing. YES 360 BECAUSE IT SOUNDS COOLER. Okay, I lied. I must confess that I am an idiot and got 360 degrees mixed up with 365 days of the year. It was too late when I realized my idiotic mistake.

The first page tells you to write down your contact info and reward money if found. I have no money so I wrote 'good karma' which is probably more worthwhile than money anyways. (......actually im just a cheapo)

And yes there is my antique 'drug free is right for me' ruler which has managed to survive through history while all my other fancy rulers didn't.

Only posting this to remind and commit myself to the project because knowing me, I will probably forget about it after sunrise. It's something like a declaration of war so I can't back out.

Some rubberhose animation of Oswald the lucky Rabbit for old memories sake. I hope to do some rubberhose style animation someday.