once upon a time.

at the airport coming home from st. louis, my flight was delayed for a bit and since i had slept in i knew i wouldn't be asleep for the whole plane ride so i went to buy a magazine to pass the time. i was looking at the huge wall lined with magazines and i couldn't decide on which one. because if i was going to buy a magazine, i'd better really like it and it'd better last me the whole time. i looked at dwell, but i wasn't interested. then i was looking for real simple, but it wasn't with the other home magazines. but i caught a glimpse of martha stewart's magazine by the fashion magazines so i moved over there and a woman walked up pushing her stroller to the same section. and every magazine i was considering, she picked up to look at, too...
i may look 16, but apparently i'm pushing 35. with a baby to boot.

@ wash u.

i'm on campus drinking a latte (hot, bc its chilly here) and reading and i feel like rory at yale. i miss it here.

meet me in st louis.

no sleep.
no shower.
no breakfast.
no cell phone.
no luggage.
...all before 730am.

that's how my morning started when i flew to st louis. but at least i finished julie&julia, which i would NOT recommend by the way. the movie is so much more enjoyable. (and it only takes a couple hours to get through.)

but i left my cell phone in my room, so i had to use a pay phone to call kara (the only number i had) to get lucy's number to get picked up from the airport. but lucy was already driving around the airport looking for me. oops :/ FINALLY, i found lucy (in julia's car) and got picked up.

jilly's.
+ lucy.
since i hadn't eaten anything all day and slept the entire way on the flight, we went to jilly's a cupcake shop for a snack. the cupcakes were HUGE.

my truffle cheesecake cupcake + much needed coffee.


lucy + hazelnut milk + german chocolate cupcake.

studio.
+ michael.
after arriving at wash u, i met up with michael @studio and tried to envision myself back in architecture. kinda freaked myself out. but seeing daniel jacobs (aka dj) and jacob bloom (aka ingdales) and leaving a note for missy helped me remember good studio memories.

happy hour.
+ ruby 3.
went with michael to the gargoyle (the basement room underneath the student center, like the hub i guess) where we met up with cassie, negin, david, ben, morgan, mike, jon, and jeff for free pizza, cookies, soda and beer, but line was so long i barely got a slice of pizza.

blues vs. kings.
+ free hot dog and drink!
afterward, i met up with lucy, kara, nick, and stephen and we got subsidized tickets to the st. louis blues hockey game and they just happened to be playing the LA kings! so i silently cheered for the kings while lucy sat next to me rooting for the blues. i have diagnosed her with sports tourettes. lol

my first hockey game!

blueberry hill.
+ darts!
after the game, we were a teensy bit hungry so stephen suggested blue hill for darts, deep fried cheddar balls, and a pitcher. we played boys vs. girls and we were at a serious disadvantage. boys won both games, but it was sure fun!

some tasty beer.

the winners: boys.


but the girls didnt do so bad + i hit a bullseye!

to blog or not to blog.

[haha, perfectly cliche title right?]

the question is: for summer project, should i blog about it here, make a new blog just for project, or send email updates to my supporters? i'd rather just blog here, but then that means all my supporters will be able to see all my silly antics and things. which i dont think i'd mind, but it just seems weird to tell everyone to "check out my blog" haha and i dont think i'd want to make a new blog either. so emails..? what do you think?

momentum.

4/28/10 - i never finished this post, but i'm kind of okay with leaving it like this.


what a weekend.

lovely time spent with jenna, megan, and sara.

desperately trying to avoid daniel and feeling like i shouldn't really be there.

but feeling affirmed in my decision to go to tokyo.

a really encouraging talk with lauren.

monday monday.

first official day of spring break!

last night, we had oden w/baachan.
sooo yummy. today, derek and i had it for lunch.

oden! mmmm :]

then derek and i took the car through the colorful car wash (which i did with rachel once before).

the colors! look how fun we were having! lol

mcdonalds run.
we tried out the new blended mochas and derek wanted 20pc chicken nuggets, but they only gave us 2 packets of sauce, so we asked for more and they gave us a ton:

what a steal.

then we went home and did a whole lotta cleaning with my brother.

i also made more granola! but derek and i snacked on it all day and so the whole corner is gone:

love this stuff.

and ate a julia child dinner. a reward for a hard day's work. :D
i bought the dvd for mom for mother's day, but dad watched it first. and then dad was so inspired, he bought the cookbook and made us chicken flambee.

clockwise from top left: the novel + cookbook; best kettle chips ever as a cooking snack;
flambee!; julia child's chicken with potatoes in a creamy mushroom sauce.

also, i forgot to mention that my brother and i are doing a harry potter movie marathon. 6 movies, 3 days!

_____________
the days following this one were much of the same. filled with sleeping in, lots of japanese food, cleaning, and of course, harry potter. unfortunately, we didn't get to #6, but that's the most recent so its okay.

pi[e] day!

sorry this is ages late...

rachel and i decorated the night before with colorful pie puns (which ashley, rachel, and i came up with) and pie drawings.

oh what a wonderful sunday it was!

rachel and i went to the farmer's market and bought our fresh strawberries (for snack & pie), mini pies, and avocados!

rachel and i made a strawberry pie (yum!) and a cream cheese pie (that could've been better). we even whipped our own whipped cream!

and shea made a tasty apple pie (which made their whole apartment late, but let's not dwell on that).

more highlights:
-rachel and i sitting on the couch eating our silvergreens salads after decorating the apartment and letting the pies set in the fridge...not talking really, but when a neighbor walked by looked at our signs and glanced into the apartment, we cracked up laughing. we looked like such losers with no friends.
- raechel being the first guest! :]
- summer stopping by even though she had lots of studying to do.
- stephen, rory, and jake joining us later in the evening.
- molekines, cameltoes, and rattails are synonymous apparently.
- mad [&] gab! team pie hard reigned champion as jake, shea, rachel and i did some good guessing. but ashley and jesse (a surprise guest!) were giving us a run for our money.

this entry doesn't do justice to the day (especially since these are the only pictures i took, but you can go over to rachel's and see the rest), but it needed to be officially recorded on the blog. lol

tgif.

finished my paper @ precisely 630am. the written portion barely made it onto the 13th page and wouldve been done sooner if word wasnt being crazy and moving my images all around. i think i like my essay - definitely a first. but im afraid im missing things in it that i talked about in class or wrote somewhere else like in the interviews. ugh the interviews. i have 12 pages of transcribed interviews. single. spaced. terribly terrible. but i think my professor will enjoy that part the most.
the morning light caught me completely by surprise. this was the first time i've never been tired. i guess it was all the tea i drank today taking effect. but now that i dont have to stay up writing anymore, i'm getting tired. but im afraid to go anywhere bc i might make too much noise and rachel fell asleep on my couch and alona's alseep in the bedroom and i'm here at the kitchen counter.

...and now that i can spend all the time i want thinking about all the things i was putting out of my head so that i could focus on my paper, i'm not sure i want to think about anything at all.

i think i'll nap for a few hrs until alona wakes up, then print my essay, go to class and crash.

love.

last night, i spent 3hrs in studio and listened to 3 sermon podcasts from 3 different churches - reality carp, cornerstone simi, and reality la. the one i cant get out of my head now is the cornerstone one which was from valentine's day weekend and was given by todd nighswonger. at the end of his sermon, he talks about christopher and mary love. christopher love was a Puritan pastor in the 1600s who was sentenced to death for preaching the gospel. but what wrecks me are the letters his wife and he exchanged before his execution. within the last ten minutes of the sermon, he reads them. i could only find the first one by mary love:

My Dear Heart,

Before I write a word further, I beseech thee, think not that it is thy wife, but a friend now that writes to thee. I hope thou hast freely given up thy wife and children to that God, who hath said, in Jeremiah 49:11, ‘Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widow trust in me.’ Thy Maker will be my husband, and a father to thy children. O that the Lord would keep thee from having one troubled thought for thy relations! I desire freely to give thee up into thy Father’s hands, and not only look upon it as a crown of glory for thee to die for Christ, but as an honour to me, that I should have an husband to leave for Christ. I dare not speak to thee, nor have a thought within my own heart, of my unspeakable loss, but wholly keep my eye fixed upon thy inexpressible and inconceivable gain. Thou leavest but a sinful, mortal wife, to be everlastingly married to the Lord of glory: thou leavest but children, brothers and sisters, to go to the Lord Jesus, thy eldest brother: thou leavest friends on earth to go to the enjoyment of saints and angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect in glory: thou dost but leave earth for heaven, and changest a prison for a palace. And if natural affections should begin to arise, I hope that spirit of grace that is within thee will quell them; knowing that all things here below are but dung and dross in comparison of those things that are above. I know thou keepest thine eye fixed on the hope of glory, which makes thy feet trample on the loss of earth.

My dear, I know God hath not only prepared glory for thee, and thee for it; but I am persuaded he will sweeten the way for thee to come to the enjoyment of it. When thou art putting on thy clothes that morning, O think, I am now putting on my wedding garments, to go to be everlastingly married to my Redeemer! And when the messenger of death comes to thee, let him not seem dreadful to thee; but look on him as a messenger that brings thee tidings of eternal life. When thou goest up the scaffold, think (as thou saidst to me) it is but thy fiery chariot, to carry thee up to thy Father’s house. And when thou layest down thy precious head to receive thy father’s stroke, remember what thou saidst to me, though thy head were severed from thy body, yet in a moment thy soul should be united to thy head, the Lord Jesus, in heaven. And though it may seem something bitter, that by the hands of men we are parted a little sooner than otherwise we might have been; yet let us consider, it is the decree and will of our Father; and it will not be long ere we shall enjoy one another in heaven again. Let us comfort one another with these sayings. Be comforted, my dear heart, it is but a little stroke, and thou shalt be there where the weary shall be at rest, and where the wicked shall cease from troubling. Remember, though thou mayst eat thy dinner with bitter herbs, yet thou shalt have a sweet supper with Christ that night. My dear, by what I write unto thee, I do not hereby undertake to teach thee; for these comforts I have received from the Lord by thee. I will write no more, nor trouble thee any further, but commit thee into the arms of that God with whom, ere long, thou and I shall be. Farewell, my dear, I shall never see thy face more, till we both behold the face of the Lord Jesus at the great day.

Mary Love, July 14, 1651.

wonderful wonderland weekend.

there is so much to say about the weekend! so i'm going to have to do it in steps lest i forget it all.
disclaimer: there is a lot of love here. and it is The Longest Post Ever. you've been warned.


friday, march 5.

1. 7-song playlists.

we calculated how long the ride would be to summer's then divided it by the average song length to come up with the 7-song playlist. then in height order [always], we listened to our selections and took a tour of summer's hometown. :]

2. Gtv awards.
later than night, we went to Grace Brethren's talent show although we didn't know anyone performing. we were laughing so much, first from trying to eat the sandwiches we smuggled in, then from singing and dancing to the performances. lol

3. ALICE.
there are no words to describe how obsessed we all are with alice now. i love helena. i love her so much! and the cheshire cat. and alice. and her many outfits. and johnny as the mad hatter. goodness. i wish there was a wonderland we could go to. disney, get on that.


saturday, march 6.
4. wme2.
we took a mini tour of summer's dad's office and although that doesn't seem like it would make the list, it was such fun! we played around in the conference rooms, checked out people's cubicles (their ways of organizing with post-its, folders, etc.), and the break room complete with eggs and a starbucks coffee/cocoa machine which we totally took advantage of.

5. hollywood hot topic.

hot topic beat disney to it. goodness, it was wonder[land]ful! we had fun with the scavenger hunt there and deciding what to buy amongst all the alice merchandise. like i said before, "we love her SOOO much!"


sunday, march 7.

6. bottle village.
seriously, "america like trash." we had a good laugh at this. and the baby doll heads. on poles no less.

7. target!
rachel, summer, and i have finally experienced target together! we love target, too.

8. family dinner!

rachel and i were inducted into the wulff family this night through family thanksgiving dinner. it was DELICIOUS. and again, we love thanksgiving.

9. ellen.
in our post-thanksgiving dinner stupor, we wanted to watch ellen, but rachel's premonition knew we'd need something to get us out of our coma and she ended up bringing a pilates dvd instead! but when there's a will, there's a way [that should have been my blog entry title bc it's a cliche and perfectly sums up our weekend...but i like alliteration, too so im going to leave it as is]. so we watched ellen via youtube. still great.

monday march 8.

using my new mug for tea + i bought shorts like these from target, so i had to figure out how to wear them.

10. borders.
it is dangerous for rachel and me to enter borders unsupervised and with no real time restraints. there are so many books we have yet to read and so many other books we want in our personal libraries. i want it all!

and check out rachel's whimsical little key casually hanging on her keyring.
it looks like the key to wonderland to me. :]

11. bstudy desserts.

last night rachel and i had a chill (literally, with the m&ms) bstudy hang out. rachael brought meringue and it was so light and fluffy! it was heavenly with the fresh strawberries. we definitely enjoyed this. and the fact that the red strawberries we in the red bowl. but that's just the way things should always be - coordinated.

12. fantastic mr. fox.
after bstudy, gaby, shea, ashley, and i hurried over to iv theater to see the fantastic mr. fox and i'm glad we did because even though we all should have been studying, it really was a fantastic movie! we laughed so much during it. oh and we laughed a bunch before it, too, because i put my backpack into gaby's trunk and saw her sex contraption/bike rack which generated a lot of talk amongst ourselves.

some memorable highlights pre-movie:
gaby: it's illegal in 42 states.
ashley: she got it on the black market.
me: you only have one kidney now, right?
gaby: yes, i sold it to get the thing. but it was worth it.

highlights post-movie:
Mr. Fox: The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?...Don't cussing point at me!
Badger: If you're gonna cuss with somebody, you're not gonna cuss with me, you little cuss!

Franklin Bean: [standing behind him] What are you singing, Petey?
Petey: Just... just making it up as I went- as I went along, really.
Franklin Bean: That's just bad songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!

Ash: There's a lot of attitudes going on around here. Don't let me get one.

Mr. Fox: I don't think he speaks English or Latin...I'm asking if he thinks we're in for a hard winter...He doesn't seem to know.


tuesday, march 9.
13. julie&julia.
i bought the book from border's yesterday and i'm only reading it before bed bc it's an easy read and doesn't make me stressed. so i read it before bed last night which was really this morning, so that's why it's here. i like it so far.

i better go bc i've been doing this for quite a while now and i better work on my paper before going to studio to finish my perspective drawings. at least i have julie&julia when i return!

this is more for me, than you.

i am a bit overwhelmed today with all the stuff i have to do before the end of the quarter so im going to put it here because i need to have it charted out with do-able benchmarks.

march 10 - 3 drawings due; in-class final
march 12 - final research paper due (12pgs+)
march 15 - re-done drawings due
march 18 - extra credit paper due (1200-1500 words); 6f final

but at least i have a plan...

plan of attack:
- tomorrow im going to call back the contacts i have for my research paper and skip real life to start the 3-drawing project.
- and i'm going to try to finish most of it early friday morning.
- i'm going to read a bunch this weekend for my extra credit paper, but also write a lot of preliminary information that i've already collected for my research paper. (well, hopefully i'll have this done before the weekend.)
- then, next week i'm going to fill in the end of the paper with new information i will have been collecting.

a picture is worth a thousand words.

today.

i decided i do not like things to be in baggies anymore.

1. plastic + glass ware.
perfect for fueling my OCD! i have a lot of plastic and glassware so i figured i might as well get as much use as i can out of them. plus, they make me happy with their colors and snaps. they're snappy. and stackable. and great!

2. coffee.
in the wonderfully addictive liquid form and also in the frozen dessert form. and together.

3. reading.
finally catching up on my art history reading! (i sense a theme amongst the blogs here...)

4. alice outfit.
today it dawned on me to start thinking abt what to pack for summer's. and i've decided i want to have an alice-themed outfit for saturday when we see alice in wonderland! after consulting summer, the silver flats are making the cut. and rachel's already convinced me of how appropriate the watch necklace will be. now im off to find a blue ribbon for a headband...

well, now im off to do more reading....and writing. i need to start writing a page a day starting yesterday. oops.
and i got an extra credit assignment yesterday that i'm going to need to do in order to pull myself from the b i have right now...hmm so i best be going.

friday.

my mini tide pen + summer's original size one.

saturday.

rainbows! (and apparently the car in front of us was smuggling a pot of gold
...or he was a leprechaun. i like to believe the latter.)

sunday.

curtains + towels in rach's living rm.
(now you can see how we made The Fort later that day.)

you got to dig a little deeper.

bc i've been slacking, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, as julie andrews would say.

friday continued.
1. adorn - worship.

chris lazo man. how does he do it every week? a rhetorical question bc i'm pretty sure God has a lot to do with it. he talked about how worship is a sacrifice and if it doesn't cost us anything, our worship is worthless. hard to hear, but needed to be said.


saturday.
2. daniel.
i hung out w daniel for the first time since we parted ways (bc broke up sounds weird, or "werid" haha) and it was really good. it wasn't at all like how i thought it would be. the only word that describes it is comfortable. it was really comfortable. like a homecoming. when we hang out it feels like that's the way it's supposed to be. just like the way it is with rachel and summer. when i talk to daniel, sometimes i don't ever get around to the point i wanted to say and it doesn't even bother me because i feel like i have all the time in the world and if i don't say it then, i'll say it later.
as for the technical stuff, we got to the root of a lot of our miscommunication (that's a word right? bc it's underlined in red...why?) and dealt with the hurt that went stemmed from that. and then we prayed for each other before he left and i was really blessed by that.


sunday.
3. reality - john 4.
the woman at the well. again. but this time, pastor britt merrick stressed how we need to put ourselves in a position of need to the people we want to evangelize to just as Jesus did. such a contrast to my mind's way of looking at sharing the gospel to my peers. "genuine humility, genuine relationship, genuine love through mutual need." while on mission, we need to put ourselves in a place of need so that we can minister to peers without being arrogant or self-righteous. with a couple people in my life, i've been wondering how i'd go about sharing the gospel when they seem like they have their lives together maybe even more than me, they're not really in much trouble. but in this thinking, i can use that to my advantage, to draw myself into their lives more. and i think i will.

4. fort!
rachel and i made a fort under her bed and it was hilariously fun. especially the keep the candle burning video we sang for summer and then the candle blew out.

5. ice cream.
then we went to the store to get some parmesan for pasta and picked up some ice cream for summer and us and headed over to the bella where we played egyptian rat slap. ice cream makes every gathering better. :]

monday.
6. princess & the frog!

Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen (look closely and they're frogs in the reflection!
...with a creepy hand trying to grab naveen!) by Alicechan

went to see this last night w summer, rachel, and gaby (and abby joined us)! it was SO good. especially with a plethora of candy and snacks about us!
i have decided: tiana is my favorite disney princess. (i have compared my love of her to that of selena gomez, so you know im serious lol) she's wonderful, optimistic but also very realistic, too. and a terribly hard worker. but not just for her own gain, but so that her father's dream could come true, too. i love that.