THAT IS SO COOL!!!

...is something I find myself saying a lot these days, concerning my high school. The boarding school I went to has undergone massive changes in the past few years, and the newest cool thing is what I received in the mail today:

NMH has a new address as of July 1, 2007!
Northfield Mount Hermon School
One Lamplighter Way
Mount Hermon, MA 01354

HOW COOL IS THAT? "One Lamplighter Way" is sooo much cooler than "206 Main Street." OMG. I am once again jealous of the peeps going there now. They are going to get the greatest arts building ever built by mankind soon, which is what I have been most jealous about recently. It's gonna house visual arts, music, and dance together under one building with state-of-the-art acoustics and floors and exhibit halls and whatnot. Some benefactor donated 10 million or something... what was the number? It was the largest ever.

(Yup, I guess now everyone realizes that the emblem is a "lamplighter".)

reading, singing

I forgot there was a different book I wanted to read, so I ended up checking that one out instead. It is Nausea by Sartre. We'll see how it goes.

And, currently singing "Poor Wandering One" from Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. I need to figure out acting in musical theater.

Just have to tout someone's horn

Why Avril Lavigne was destined to be a star (live acoustic performance of Nobody's Home):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66MFvu4-VaA
Live performance of When You're Gone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8oWY_0dMk8
(love what she does at 3:14.)

So good, so so so good. And so pretty! As V.Li and I (professional unbiased critics) conclude, Avril is the best live performer (ever).

There's just something about watching her sing, an awe that that sound is coming out of this person and that wavy mesmerizing vampire mouth.

Very shaky

Me singing Innocence by Avril Lavigne. Well, I pretty much belt all of the verses (not chorus), which is really hard for me and is why I'm verging on cracking all the time. I think I do the last chorus best. The bridge sucks! This is one of my least favorite bridges of any Avril song (bridges are definitely a staple of Avril songs), but I love the song overall.

EDITED to add: OK I've made this video private again so sorry it can't be viewed anymore.

to read

Just want to say that I finished East of Eden last week, and it was life-changing. It had a most important, touching, and profound message. But I cannot see myself ever reading it through again due to the length, writing style that was somehow harsh, and not-pretty plot. I've decided not to read Cannery Row, because I want to preserve East of Eden purely in my mind and not distort it with another book by the same author (like you know how authors tend to write about the same subjects over and over again).

So, probably gonna read Cloud Atlas, as recommended by my brother, mostly because of its name (heh). I can just see someone looking at the clouds, like maybe from a "Laputa, Castle in the Sky," with quill and parchment, drawing an atlas of clouds.

Pics from weekend

Arr, as expected, I suddenly went from bored to much self-induced busyness. Other than business, now I'm working on a very large cross-stitch project and doing my youtube singing videos. Argh, it would've been better if these ideas weren't put in my head at the same time. I found out about a website that lets you create cross-stitch patterns for free with an image. I just couldn't resist. It's pretty fun seeing how your patterns would turn out. Here's the link.

Oh and today I walked by Gap again and went in to see if the dress I wanted was further reduced, and it was! So I got it.

We didn't follow the arrow HAHAHA...


Florence's graduation reception. Second year in a row we attended someone's graduation from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

How to Kill 2 Hours

I have been very bored in the past few days. Actually, bored out of my mind. I know, I'll be missing this relaxation when I get busy again. But right now I haven't been busy with work, don't have much social life, don't really have any craftsy projects in the works, and (again) lacking in the area of media entertainment...

Anyway. Very bored. Drove to downtown Evanston. Fed an hour into the meter. Found the origami book I wanted but decided I don't want it. Got distracted by Gap's "biggest sale" (or something) on the way to Dunkin' Donuts. Tried on dresses. Revelation! I do not fit Gap's size 0 dresses?! Wanted one of them (size 4) but it was only discounted by $10. Must pass. Looked at watch. Egads! Must feed meter. Walked back to meter to feed another hour. Walked back to Dunkin' Donuts. Used coupon. The owner/manager is mean but is only mean to me. I've only been there a few times but have tried things to see if they make him not mean but doesn't work. Now he hates me more because I use coupons HA! Got my small iced coffee in hazelnut flavor (they were out of chocolate flavor. Or maybe he just says that to me.). Went to Barnes & Noble and browsed. I love Hokusai prints. Checked to see if the magazine that's gonna have my origami stuff in it is out yet (it's not). Oh well.

Then I went home and listed about 10 books on ebay--which is the most boring, tedious, mind-numbing thing ever.

Library Adventures

My voice teacher has been demanding that I listen to and watch loads of opera. So I finally got my butt to the Evanston Public Library yesterday to check out some CDs, since the NU library does not lend out recordings. It never occurred to me that the public library would have things I would want that a university library doesn't have. I am very excited about this. There's an origami book I wanted to get that they have.

Well, the thing about the EPL, it has an AMAZING sculpture in the stairwell:

From far away it looks like a head, but up close it is a complex mobile of tiny metal objects:

This is the artists' website.

Fruity Oaty Bar!

I've been meaning to get a new apron, since my old one is gross even on the inside. I ended up making this one today:

It's from the Fruity Oaty Bar advertisement in Serenity!! It's an iron-on transfer. I got the idea from a post on craftster.org, so not entirely original. I didn't sew the apron, I bought it at an art store, which is why it's an artist apron and not chef's apron. Also had to buy a new color cartridge, since the one in my printer was obviously out of red. And bought the transfer paper. This just goes to show how much more it costs to make stuff than to buy it at Wal-Mart. I haven't had a high success rate with iron-on transfers in the past, so I made sure I followed the instructions and read tutorials, and YES, SUCCESS! I love it.

You can see the ad in the context of the movie here, although the aspect ratio is wrong in the video, which is really annoying, since I love this scene:

Tuesday thoughts

I want to quit. Singing sucks. Except I love it. And hate it. And can't be without it. I don't need to study it. But when I do I learn. Ack.

Oprah announced her new Book Club book today: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I read this book about 2 years ago, and it was amazing. Well it did win the Pulitzer Prize. Even Oprah said she is slow in adding this book to the Club since she just got around to reading it. However, I really have no feelings left for Middlesex or most other novels for that matter since I read the one book that I most strenuously recommend, called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, another Pulitzer-Prize winner... unless you are one of my friends who has an aversion to books with over 600 pages (I think Middlesex is also 600 pages). It is my hands-down favorite.

Right now I am reading East of Eden (coincidentally, it's called "the book that brought back Oprah's Book Club" or something). It was recommended by Stephen Hui. And I don't get many book recommendations so I run with what I've got. The thing about it is the writing's not beautiful, in my opinion. And I don't think I want to read anymore family epics for a while. However, it's pretty riveting, and I'm not done yet... it's a 650-pager. I checked out the book from the NU library, and it's a recently-published (doesn't look like it's been checked out before, non-disgusting) collection of Steinbeck books, so I plan to also read Cannery Row before returning it.

And confession time... I have been very bad. Nothing's on TV, absolutely nothing (um well except reruns, fluff and filler). So we have been re-watching Firefly episodes, and I am crazy infatuated with every character. Also, we rented Slither last weekend--I know, I'm so bad. But Nathan Fillion! And Elizabeth Banks (except we call her Steak Dinner--I guess it's pretty impossible to guess why. Guess right and you get a gold star)!

Please go away

Saw these at a store today, countdown to Bush's last day in office:

I love 'em but refuse to let Bush influence what I will waste money on.

Movies, no spoilers

We got a movie pass again. It is a 2-week free trial at Blockbuster that's like an in-store and online combo thing that's just a crazy good deal, which only exists because obviously Blockbuster wants to stop people from using their nemesis Netflix any way they can, which in this case is just give away movie rentals. (For anyone interested, here's the deal. They send you movies and you send them back, and you can have three at a time. But that's not all! Each mailed movie can be returned in-store in exchange for an in-store movie, which does NOT count toward your three-movie maximum. Moreover, they give you one free in-store rental coupon. Of course, per Blockbuster's new-ish policy, no late fees (I'm not gonna go into the catch). All of this free for two weeks. In addition, supposedly you can keep getting the two-week free trial over and over again and no one cares.)

OK I didn't mean for that to be that long. Anyway, here is what we've rented: Children of Men, Night at the Museum, Notes on a Scandal, Wordplay, Deja Vu, Borat, Munich, Blood Diamond, A Scanner Darkly, The Last King of Scotland, Superman Returns, An Inconvenient Truth, Rocky Balboa. The last four of which have yet to be watched, and I've got a thing or two to say about each... which I won't do here... but so far all have been pretty good to great, except Borat, which I found extremely disturbing, excruciating to watch, and by the way, those were all unknowing/innocent people except for Pamela Anderson, so it really sucks for them. I would recommend people not see Borat. Even if you are curious, it's not worth knowing how dispicable it is. Secondly, Deja Vu has a huge plot hole! If you don't think about it TOO hard (because honestly you have to think about it pretty hard to sort out the plot and its hole), it's okay to watch. But my husband, being some mathematic/logic psychotic person, put the plot hole together right away, which makes Deja Vu the dumbest movie of 2006. Otherwise, I enjoyed or appreciated all the others very much, although none of them are for repeated viewing, as they are mostly hard to watch or very serious.

Even amidst our two-week rental extravaganza, we made time to see the very wonderful Waitress, which I must rave about so anyone reading this will be nudged to see it. Sadly, it is only in 116 theaters, but one of those theaters is Century in Evanston--so I'm not sad! I would probably see any film that has Nathan Fillion, and I sorta love Keri Russell after her small role in M:I 3, but it is also critically beloved, with a 89% tomatometer rating on rottentomatoes. It will make you smile in an Amelie kind of way, except it's not at all in utopia.

Goodbye Gilmores

Last night was the Gilmore Girls series finale. It was sad and extremely heartfelt. It ended with Rory getting a job and leaving, which makes total sense that the show would end when Rory graduates and leaves forever. Loralei and Luke were left open-ended. And the last shot was really sad but the absolute perfect ending. It's not exactly appropriate to mourn a TV show, but for Gilmore Girls fans, it is something to be mourned--at least for a short while. I feel like crying just writing this, which is something only its loyal viewers would understand. We will miss the Gilmores, Stars Hollow, it's inhabitants, and the hour we spent once a week in their lives.

Heroes

Tonight's Heroes episode has been my favorite so far. Problem is, I think my husband has a crush on Peter Petrelli (played by Milo Ventimiglia). Of course I am way ahead of him, since I've been crushing on Jess in Gilmore Girls (played by the same) since the turn of the century. Peter Petrelli is almost TOO cool and amazing, it's sickeningly sweet:

Weekend

Fri: Vietnamese dinner in Argyle, episode of Firefly

Sat: Brunch at Sola, Lincoln Park Zoo, dinner in Chinatown

Sun: Tennis

Lincoln Park Zoo (it's free!) has a very cool greenhouse/plant area. This is our second visit, the last time was two years ago right before a huge controversy/scandal when elephants died. Animals in zoos will always be controversial, but plants are equally fun to look at and do not carry controversy. These are da bomb:

And lamas are da bomb. I would want a lama if I ever have acres:

Cool pic of my flowers in Tiffany

from Cecilia in NYC. There's nothing like this in Chicago. Love it.

SUV moment

I love peace and am trying to be a big person, trying to say It's okay I'll do fine, trying to say I can innovate, but it pisses me off that I have two new competitors who are not playing fair by ripping off others. My mind is consumed by how I am going to crush them. I mean, that's how any normal business owner would react, right? It's not me being malicious, this is just a normal reaction!

Dear Competitors:

First Competitor, your website is an obvious copy of mine. You know, some people try to be creative and take pride in their original work. Maybe you should try it, you'll know what I mean. People say imitation is the best compliment, but I am highly offended that you would flat-out rip me off! Honestly, if you changed your site to not resemble mine, I'd be cool with you. But now I'm sorry to tell you this pool is not big enough for two fish. I've got tricks up my sleeve.

Second Competitor, you are hogging all the ad space. You are entitled to that, because all it takes is $, but it is totally unethical of you to steal an image from another person's site. If it were from my site, I would hunt you down and bitch slap you for that. You can't take a simple picture yourself, you have to steal it from someone else? And your aggressive ad placement just screams inferiority complex.

Prepare to get crushed.

in a pressure cooker

It's insane how much I've learned about singing and being a performer in the past 8 months or so. I know this is hard to believe, but being a singer/musician is a lot like being an athlete:
I. Physical aspects
a) muscle memory--training your muscles to have an automatic response from repeatedly practicing the action. First you build the muscles, then they move automatically when required. In singers, these are mostly abdominal muscles and muscles around ur mouth/throat, which are not easy to control (when compared to the bicep, for example), and the movement/contraction should be almost involuntary.

b) stamina. My singing sucks if I haven't eaten, which is why I stockpile bananas. I know it's "just" singing, but it's so tiring... for example, a recital that is about an hour long is quite difficult for a singer.

II. Mental aspects
a) concentration--both athletes and singers have to be "in the zone" to perform well. There are all sorts of weird exercises to help them tune everything else out.
b) evil mental garbage--ever see the movie "Wimbledon"? Thinking you'll mess up, thinking you're not good enough, what ifs... affect performance. You know how just some days you can't filter through the garbage, whether you're working or eating or reading, etc?

Well right now I'm singing a very beautiful aria called the Bell Song, from Lakme. My last lesson did not go well, because I couldn't stop thinking about the People Who Owe Me Money.

I'M BACK!!!

I've been living a hermetic blog life for a while but OK I have stuff to say.

Let me start of with the issue of PEOPLE WHO OWE ME MONEY.

Dear People Who Owe Me an amount of money large enough to be the down payment on a house, as in, you large corporation that rakes in the bucks but has issues paying vendors in a timely manner: I love you, I really do, you gave me loads of business and have been very nice to me and loose with money the whole time... [edited out details] ...and for that, I thank you.

However, it is not cool for you to pay me 1 - 2 months after your very complex order has been successfully delivered--early, even--without a single problem. I know this is not an outrageous amount of time for most large companies, but I am small, and if I had the money you owe me, I can put it into a CD account, for example, which is why there is such a thing as "interest" that occurs as time passes, to make up for those hundreds of dollars in earnings lost.

Again, you are awesome, I would probably want to work for you if I had a 9-5 job, and your products are legendary, but, this is just not cool.

To anyone who's reading...
I highly recommend the series finale of some dumb 5-season show called "Alias." OK I sorta love that show. I (badly) stayed up unnecessarily late to rewatch the finale. Some scenes feel like Mission Impossible 3. The bad guy REALLY gets it. I mean, the worst thing that can happen to a bad guy who wants to take over the world. The ending is very bittersweet, which is exactly how a finale should be. Surprisingly, every character is accounted for in the end. I appreciated that the creators did not rush through the story to end the flailing series. As a bonus, both the series finale and series premiere have scenes in Hong Kong. I would also recommend the first 2 seasons, especially the series premiere. Have you noticed that Sydney cries in every single episode (and I mean, in all 5 seasons, that's more than 100 times--because sometimes she cries more than once)? Of course one of the premises that makes the series work is that Sydney is extremely emotional--a very emotional CIA double agent woman who saves the world with her once-estranged father, her ex-fiance who got married to someone else when he thought she was dead, and her ex-fiance's new wife (who turns out to be working with evil terrorists), her half-sister whom she didn't know existed, and at times, her ex-KGB mother whom she believed to be dead most of her life who killed her ex-fiance's father among many, and the bad guy who is also her half-sister's father. Drama ensues.

It doesn't sound like it, but I've been very busy! Until this moment, now I'm not very busy again. Yay.