Day 19

1:22 - dead pens

I collect dead pens and pencils. It started when I began high school and decided to buy colored pens to color-code my classes. I hand wrote most of my notes, so I drained the ink from pens pretty quickly. I guess I find it really satisfying to see all the writing utensils that I've completely used up. 23 pens and and 10 pencils!

What odd things do you people collect?

Day 18

9:36 am - clean me!

I really need to clean the table...!

Day 17

11:36 am - bartle-doo?

Brother watching Mumbles, a character from one of our favorite youtube comedians, Ed Bassmaster. Ed's a great actor and he plays hilarious pranks on people while secretly filming them.

I can't say I've done anything quite like Ed, but while we were vacationing on Sanibel Island, my cousin and I decided to play a prank on Joey, who sells ridiculously priced hot dogs and sodas from a pontoon boat. Here's how it went:
Joey: Hello.
Me: 你好！ (ni hao, translation: hello)
Joey: .... half-smiles, confused
Me: 请你给我一杯可乐. (qing ni gei wo yi bei kele, please give me a cola)
Cousin: She wants a cola, and a sprite. (I had forgotten to ask for that too, haha)
Joey: still half-smiling in puzzlement, grabs the drinks, hands them to me That's four dollars.
Greg: 四个. (si ge, four)
Me: [hands Joey the money] 谢谢！(xiexie, thank you)
Joey: Uh, sure.
Me and cousin: run away giggling, totally not looking suspicious.

We came up with elaborate plans afterward, but didn't get a chance to carry them out. :(

Here's another prank I came up with and the boys carried out:

Cousin: What movie is playing tonight?
Hotel Receptionist: I think it's G-Force.
Cousin: Oh really? Isn't that the movie that got negative reviews because of explicit sexualization of female animals?
HR: .... Um, I don't decide. I just work here.

We were trying to get them to play a different movie, but it didn't quite work out. And according to my brother, who is a movie buff, it did get bad reviews because of the negative portrayal of female hamsters.... sad.

Day 16

4:48 pm - surprise greeting

Brother and I lined up snowmen on the driveway to welcome our parents back home from Las Vegas. We used to play a game where we'd make little snowmen and put them on the street to see if cars would run over them or avoid them. Usually the cars barreled straight ahead, avoiding the snowmen with their tires and occasionally knocking their heads off with the underside of the car. It was actually little old men with glasses as thick as fingers that slowed down to 5 mph and carefully maneuvered around the sacrificial snowmen.

Day 15

6:30 pm - eyes and ears

Sorry, this photo was actually the top to the photo take yesterday! Thought it was neat, plus I was too lazy to take a photo today anyway.

Day 14

6:25 pm - head, shoulders

Day 13

5:55 pm - work in progress, scene from Mononoke

I've forgotten how much I love to draw! After seeing Princess Mononoke last week I could not stop replaying scenes in my head. I think my mind likes to fixate on certain things for brief periods of time. A couple of weeks ago it was "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music - over and over and over.... This past week it has been Mononoke.

Day 12

10:04 - pillows

I'm enjoying how this looks like an oil painting.

Day 11

9:12 am - bedhead

Day 10

8:35 pm - noise

Day 9

11:55 pm - snake tongue

I love it when my fingers are stained black from the fingerboard of my violin.

Day 8

9:46 am - morning sky

Here's what I wrote in my journal three years ago, recounting a dream:

Some nifty teleportation stuff occurs, enough to save brother and I from the currents of the canyon river and into a tiny inflatable raft. Dad and the pilot continue their flight, leaving us bobbing down the river.

Everything is miraculously beautiful. Everything you can touch, see, smell, taste - it is raw and gorgeous. The canyon walls are rough with limestone, rising about four stories. The sky is as crystal clear blue as the sparkling water.

Brother and I are squished in the raft, but as we round the corner I pull closer to him. We are approaching a waterfall and I don't know how big it is. The edge draws nearer and nearer. I fleetingly wonder if we'll die, but everything is amazing and brother is blissfully smiling. I stop worrying.

Our small raft tips over the edge of the pulsing water. We are falling - but there is mist so I can't see anything and far too soon we hit the water with a splash!

I float underwater, thinking I am dead, my body slowly rising to the surface. I thrash to air, my hair clinging to my face. Brother rises a few meters to my right.

As soon as I can stand on the rocky floor of the lake, I look behind me at the waterfall. It is at least 70 feet high, with multiple ledges. Incredulously, I wonder how we survived the tumble and I think I've fallen to heaven.

I spot dad waving us to the shore, where a little house is half hidden by trees. Ben and I run to him, hugging and laughing. Dad seems forlorn and I dance about, desperately trying to make him see the beauty.

Then something warm and gooey lands on my head, face, and shoulders. I pause and scream. There is bird poo all over me! I sprint back to the water and furiously scrub away.

Day 7

11:50 pm - nostalgia

When was seven my friend Elyssa, my brother, and I stuffed clothes, toothbrushes, bottles of water, and snacks into sleeping bags and ran away. By ran I mean walked out the door, down the short road of the cul de sac my family lived on, and hid behind a road sign. I explained to Elyssa that we needed to find a river with soap leaves, which we could use to wash clothes, as I had read in the Josephina American Girl book. If we could settle next to a source of water we could live outside forever. We sat down behind the sign and spread our clothes over the bushes. It was almost perfect. I cracked open a bottle of water and listened to cars whizz past on the main road.

A few minutes later Elyssa's mom and my parents found us. We were scolded for dirtying clothes and not asking permission to leave the house. Mom claimed my clothes were wet, but they were actually just cold. I was grounded and shut in my room to fold all the clothes that were in my sleeping bag. Elyssa and her mother left.

In Arizona, my brother and I never tried to run away. I think it's because the climate and wildlife there are more dangerous. Scorpians, cacti, gila monsters, and the feared rattlesnake kept us close to home.

As a child I felt a deep spiritual bond with nature. I still do, but it isn't the same. Now as I grow older I'm beginning to look for the same connection again. This is why I love Myasaki's films - they make me feel like it's just me, the earth, the sky, and the magical presence of forest spirits.

Day 6

11:05 pm - wall battle

dear blogger, give me BETA or give me DEATH!!!!!! thanks, oliv

Day 5

6:50 pm - window

can't write too much - this photo came up later than expected. this morning I tried to take a photo in the dark and then increase the brightness in gimp, but I have to figure out how to set my exposure period for more than 30 seconds.

my family donated some money to the red cross today to help fund aid in haiti. I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to walk down a ruined street in hot muggy weather, the stench of dead bodies hanging stagnant in the air along with the cries of those trapped beneath the rubble. the worst part is that the government is completely unprepared to deal with a disaster like this, so the civilians have no means of digging out those buried alive. I can't imagine the pit of despair that stems from utter helplessness. it is terrible.

I'll write something cheerier tomorrow, I promise.

Day 4

8:50 am - tracks

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do. Soon I will be in college hopefully preparing for a career. After an education, I'll have my career, work hard and do well, get promotions, make money, invest money. I'll get married. Have kids.

Kids. Isn't that what it boils down to? Of all the things I will do, that will probably have the most lasting impact. When I die I won't be thinking of the money or the promotions. I'll be thinking about the people I have loved and cared for and those who have loved and cared for me.

Perhaps in college I really should be studying something that will help me raise my children. Not "how to be a mommy" classes of course, but psychology, education, child development. In my life, I have met close to zero parents where I have sat back and thought, "Wow. This person is a great mother/father."

I have found through living with families and observing families, that even if a person has kids, they are by no means an expert at raising them. Most parents, in some form or another, push their weaknesses and insecurities onto their children. Many assume that "kids will be kids" and their squabbles over "this is mine" and "you said that" are about holes in the ground or candy or toys. But it's often not about that. It's about integrity, keeping promises, being truthful. If a parent wants to teach their kids not to lie, they have to embody truth - be it as well as teach it. If the parent makes a mistake, they show that it's OK to goof up and learn from errors.

It's a difficult task and I'm never surprised that no parent is perfect. But I am surprised how under prepared parents often are when it comes to being role models and educators. Or how little they are willing to seek help and ask for advice.

No matter what, I'll have a career. I think it is important for women to be financially independent of their husbands, because so often they get the worst of divorces when the husband is the sole breadwinner. I'll never rely on someone completely. But the skills I learn that will ultimately be the most important are those that help me raise children into happy adults.

Day 3

12:50 pm - through the amber spyglass

Whenever I am in need of an emotionally and intellectually satisfying read I always return to Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. Each time I read his books I uncover something new. They are a wonderfully spiritual meditation complemented perfectly by a magical science.

My first read of the series began when I was eleven, just after moving to the city I live in now. A friend of my parents was pregnant with twins at the time and while she was on bed rest we read The Golden Compass together. I visited her house quite a bit during the summer to play with her younger daughter and discuss the book. When she had her twins, life got understandably quite busy and I quickly surpassed her in the series.

Back then I was most intrigued by the daemons, which are independent parts of a human's soul that take the form of an animal. Apparently Pullman was inspired in part by Da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine." Now I'm fascinated with the question of what happens when you divide the smallest possible particle. There are atoms, then protons and neutrons, then quarks. Then what? Strings, if you support string theory. What happens when you cut a string? In Pullman's books, spectors are created from the release of energy when the subtle knife makes a cut into the smallest particle.

My camera's lens needs to be cleansed. But I like what happened here, so I might leave it dusty for a few more days.

Day 2

8:40 am - family pincushion

Those little babies circling the pincushion are quite therapeutic. When I was little and angry, I would prick their faces with needles. I always felt a little guilty afterward, so I'd treat them by washing their faces and smoothing their hair. Wai po (my Chinese grandmother) told me that she knows how to make them, but I haven't learned. I think I was more enthralled with the idea that they are attached to the pincushion at only their hands and feet, which meant that I could easily free them if I was willing to incur the wrath of mom.

Day 1

7:30 pm - ches (violin) and crisis (bow).

here's the plan: take 1 photo every day for 201 days. why 201 you ask? because originally I was going to do 2010, to represent the new year. but I figured that would be a mite of a stretch.

this blog is meant for friends and family who are interested. any other blog that seems like it stems from me, it's not for your consumption! kidding. I only have one other blog, and you will never find it.

sorry.

I've been inspired by this and this and a little of this. oh, and LOTS of this. I like reading text, so my pictures will probably include some writing. I would really love to do something similar to the "nie and you" blog, where each day she has a picture taken by a woman in Germany and then one from her life in the US. if you're interested in doing something like that, we should talk.

perhaps I am getting a little ahead of myself.

in other words, this is why I started playing the violin. I was 3 1/2 when I asked my mom if I could start. she waited a year to make sure I was serious before signing me up for suzuki lessons with Mr. Rogers (not from the TV show, as I've been asked by impressionable young minds) and a cardboard violin. as an extremely shy and rather stubborn child, I refused to shake Mr Rogers' hand at the beginning of the lesson. (it's a suzuki thing.) I didn't pick up a real violin until six months later.

when I was 6 or 7, my mom phoned Mr Rogers and told him that I was going to take a break from the violin. 15 minute practice sessions had become a real struggle, usually ending up with me in tears and in the laundrey room taking a time-out. when I came home from school, she informed me of the telephone call. I sat on the couch and cried. I couldn't imagine not playing the violin, as much as I hated it at times. so mom called Mr Rogers back and informed him that my break was very short-lived.

I think that sums up my relationship with the violin. it annoys me sometimes (though not nearly as much as it used to), but I can't imagine not playing it. I will always play. even when I'm living in a senior center in diapers with a little drool on my chin and kids are coming to perform for me, instead of the other way around.