Thigh high socks and negative connotations

I really dig thigh-high socks, or over-the-knee socks, because they're cute and are wonderful alternatives to full on pantyhose and tights when I'm wearing skirts and dresses. I'm a little hesitant about wearing them in the presence of the male specimen, though, because they come with sexual undertones and I'd like to avoid enticing anyone, what with my fabulously tight thighs and bright yellow skin and all. It still bothers me that my Google search results for "how to keep thigh highs up" are an equal mix of helpful links to tutorials and images with lingerie models and dominatrix pornographic video screenshots. Thanks, Google, I understand now. I understand that nude legs are sexy, and I understand that barely clothed legs are just as sexy and to many people, even more arousing. Given that, I don't like to dress cute while others look at my ensemble as sexy. Initially when I came home shopping with three new pairs of thigh-highs, I was afraid Mother wouldn't approve because they are "sexy", but she gave me the o-k because "sexy" didn't cross her mind, so I was happy until I talked to a male friend about it, to which he replied and warned me to not tell him about my thigh-highs again or else I'd paint a displeasing--or rather disrespectful-- picture of myself in his mind.

Could someone help me solve the mystery as to why it's so hard to draw the line in the proper place between these two looks?

All clueless complaining aside, I have actually worn a pair with lace band to a dinner party with my dad, and he didn't say anything so I hope these are good to go when I get back to school. (Then again he doesn't tell me anything that bothers him so I'll never know...) At this point it's really difficult to close the case and vow to never wear thigh-highs in order to respect my image when I've already bought three adorable pairs and six complementary knee-socks I was already very excited about wearing. Crossing my fingers here: I hope my first "Thigh-high Thursday" in school goes well without unwanted attention. Winter is my favorite season for fashion!

It's the only season to break out these adorable Bear-bands, too :)

Conditioning for Christmas

Do you focus your Christmas holiday around Jesus Christ or around Christmas presents?
Is it about meeting your material quota or more about spending quality time with your family?
What does Christmas mean to you and why is it important to think about it now?

I've become more aware of these problems during Christmas and Easter this year. These questions are definitely not head-scratchers, but they are a little thought-provoking when I get to the "why" aspect.

So for all of my life until a couple years ago, Christmas has always been about becoming a better person during Advent season to impress Santa (or just my relatives as I got a little too old for Santa) and waiting patiently for the wonderful gifts I would receive after Christmas Eve Mass. My Christmas gifts started out as toys and teddy bears, and as I reached the awkward pre-teen years I had been getting more clothes than toys and at first I felt really unhappy about it. Through middle school I started appreciating more clothes than toys, and then through high school I had been getting less gifts overall and my first reaction is "This is poop Christmas" but now I'm okay about it. (~%!!*Thank you, Recession*!!%~) The kiddy, gift-receiving aspect of Christmas, I hope, as shrunken in me so that I can enjoy Christmas the way it should be enjoyed.

Some years ago my dad joined the church choir, Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, and would always sing for the Christmas Mass at noon on Christmas Day, whereas I would attend the Christmas Eve mass and sleep in. Two years ago I attended the noon mass instead and when I found that the music was so majestic and beautiful, I felt a slight change in me and instantly thought "I'm going to join the choir playing violin." So there I was at choir rehearsal and Sunday noon mass with a crowd of 30+ year olds. I got to play for the very next Christmas and I came to the conclusion that working with people to play beautiful music just for God, especially on Christmas, felt so much more fulfilling than sitting through the Mass without any obligations toward anything other than plainly showing up. Thus, transformed again, as I prepare for my second Christmas with Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, I take up rehearsals and even Advent Masses as gifts for God as I condition my violin playing for the Mass.

This still has little to do with enjoying Christmas the way it should be, however after 14 weeks of Lightworks and a thought-provoking prayer group meeting today, I'm slowly getting there.

Today I see that Christmas in the States is arguably mainly only about buying presents for your loved ones and the delight to be on the receiving end, and simply put, it's easy because we don't have to think about Christ. Plenty of people are afraid to face Christ or think about Him unless it's to say His name in vain, and Catholics encourage people to embrace Christ but there's always someone who defiantly asks "why".

Why focus Christmas around Jesus? Why embrace Christ? Why do I need Him?

In regards to today's reading, Luke 3: 1-6, I had to think about this questions first:

What kind of world did Christ come to build?

The imagery in the Gospel made me think that Christ came to smooth out the kinks in our world. To lower the mountains and fill up the valleys was an analogy of extracting Sin from the world to me. But then I thought that it would just mean that God simply needed to destroy Lucifer, his most powerful angel, which then would only allow us to love God by default and not of choice. So, it's less about "fixing our wrongs" to become good, it's about leading each and every one of us to become new. Christ came to build a world of new people, more than merely good people.

I've been told countless of times by my Agnostic friends that "If God is good and loves us, he'll take us if we just live good lives, because someone who's lived a good life without going to church doesn't deserve to be in hell."
More eloquently put by Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) in his Meditations:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

If we only focus on becoming good people, we treat God as if we treat Santa Clause."Yes, God, I've refrained from lying and stealing for five years so far. How high are my chances of getting into heaven, now?" Instead, we are called to become new persons, through which only Jesus can help us. Living the life Buddha calls us to live cannot transform us as God's graces do, and that's exactly why we need Christ. It's why Christmas is for Jesus and love and family, and it's why we should spend our Advent conditioning our souls for His arrival.

Much easier said than done, I know. And yes, I am looking for a neat gift for my friend. But I don't want to forget what Christmas should be so that I can reconcile that with how I choose to celebrate this coming Christmas. Happy Advent?

Every soul deserves a prayer

Tonight I just got news from my aunt that a co-worker at her hair salon died of a car crash. It was on her way out of Giant Pharmacy picking up her medicine after leaving work. It's a little ironic: she picks up medicine that will essentially help her live longer by fighting sickness or improving her health, but before she can even go home to properly ingest it, her life has ended in a second.

One time I said to my uncle that I typically don't like to find any kind of death a funny matter unless it's an ironic death. I take it back. Every death is a solemn matter, and every soul deserves a prayer.
I spend a lot of my life planning for the future and deciding what to do with my life 20 years down the road, but it takes another person's death to remind me that nothing about my future, not even my future itself, is guaranteed. I optimize my chances of living a long life every day by taking care of my diet and practicing safety measures when I'm out in public, but in the end, anything can happen.

When I stop to think about it, I don't fear death. I'm only afraid of my life ending on bad terms. I hope her life ended at the fine time.

Busking experience

On Saturday my string quartet played outside our local Giant for donations for the orchestra. It was cold and windy as expected, but my fingers weren't prepared, so for four hours straight it was really rough. We played Winter holiday tunes and Handel's Passacaglia in G minor out of the blue, which I guess is still appropriate because Baroque and minor keys add ups to winter themes.

The passacaglia was the last song in the cycle to play though, and we played three cycles. By the end of the first song, which was really long because of the tempo and the half notes, the cellist was ready to cut the passacaglia. I wanted to sympathize, but I couldn't at the time, so I pouted and told him sternly that nothing would be cut. Of course, after our last cycle I decided to have us check out thirty minutes early and get our hands warm and functioning again.

The sweetest memory I have from that day is when on our last cycle, just as we were getting to play Handel's Passacaglia for the last time, a man walked toward the box to donate and told us he'd stay to watch us play one song. No one decided to stay and watch because no one before him actively showed any interest. Once he stayed, though, a couple of others gathered to watch, and it was so heart-warming especially since it was our last song of the day and it became our best performance. We finished and he applauded, threw in another dollar, and left.

Regardless of having to put up with playing in the wind for generally unspirited and uninspired people in the community, being there with my team and being rewarded with that one generous man at the end made my time there worth while. I'm excited to do this again.



Happy Thanksgiving,
Annie.

Can't be hateful, gotta be grateful

I already know I won't have the time or energy after Thanksgiving to be able to blog, so I thought I might as well share my thanks and reflect on this past year now. (My thanks extend to Ark Music Factory for another ridiculous music video just in time for the holidays.)

Ark Music Factory's "Thanksgiving Song"

First off, I'm still changing as I grow older, but I think I went through a very rapid transformation this past year since last year's Thanksgiving, and there are a handful of people and events to which I am extremely grateful for. I'd probably still be a lost sheep by now if it wasn't for everything that has happened thus far.

I hope this doesn't come off as dark as I think it will be, but I'm thankful for my very last break up with my then-boyfriend about 18 months ago. It wasn't a healthy relationship at all and because I wasn't the one who would break off, getting kicked out of the relationship pushed me to look at myself honestly in the mirror to accept that I need to be happy and strong on my own before seeking companionship. I remember it being a bit of a painful process, too, as the break-up was about a week before my Confirmation.

Around this time one year ago I joined a new youth group and we started praying through Thao Luyện Nhẹ Nhàng, or "Lightworks". Most people in the group were my age but we all came from different schools and I didn't know anyone very well, but as the program was progressing I gradually loved everyone and was able to relate to them on a spiritual level. We were all kind of lost sheep to varying degrees, and being able to pray for each other helped me to understand a lot more what it meant to be Christian. Lightworks finished after 14 weeks and by then I knew a little more solidly 1) What God's love was all about from Anno Domini, and 2) How to live.

These days I wonder what the kind of person I'd end up being in some parallel universe where I didn't have married, loving parents and God in my life. I think I'd have this never-ending craving to fit in with popular people in school and many of my friends would probably be the people I can't deal with in school right now. Or, surprise surprise, what if I was an incredibly good-looking boy that all the girls wanted me?!

Kurosawa (left) and Nakanishi (right) from Sukitte Ii Na Yo

Hypotheses never end for me no matter how grateful I am about my life...
Whatever I dream up, though, it never compares to the life I live today, because I'm sure I'm on the right path to being the kind of person I want to be.
I want to be the kind of friend who helps to make her own friends better people;
the kind of daughter whose mom can happily trust completely and support endlessly,
the kind of musician who performs with honesty and inspiring musicality,
the kind of teacher who has more to teach about the future and reality than her own actual subject,
the kind of girlfriend who can light a fire in her boyfriend's heart and inspire him to share a love with her beyond romance,
and the kind of blogger who can limit the sappy, poetic endings to only the most special blog posts.
(I try not to do this, sorry.)

Happy Thanksgiving, God bless.

Fostering a viola

Until May I am "borrowing" my cousin's viola. I really don't want to return it because the tone of the viola is darker and so much more rich and I love that sound!
I will be using this lovely viola for my IB HL Music recital in March and maybe I'll play in my school's orchestra with it if I can catch up on reading alto clef! Though I am more competent in violin, I feel the challenge of playing viola in orchestra will be tons more exciting than Carmen Fantasy on violin. I'm so excited right now!

I am naming him (viola) Pablo as in Pablo de Sarasate. It was the first name I thought of and I did want to change my mind to name him Karol for either Former Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła) or Karol Szymanowski but then I'd have a hard time deciding which reference to tell people, so I stuck to Pablo. I love Sarasate's music, anyway, so there's no regrets!

After about thirty minutes practicing Vocalise on viola without a shoulder rest really hurts, though, so I can't play as much as I want until I buy one. Going back to violin even after just thirty minutes on viola feels like this, though:

Things I never learn

I've been really happy with what the Missha Signature Real Complete BB Cream has done for my face these past six days I've been using it! I feel fresh and confident when I walk out the door no matter how many pimples I have! (And that is a problem as well....................................)

Make up has liberated me from caring about my diet and because Dad bought Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake that Saturday that Mom bought me the BB Cream, and also because my violin student gave me an entire chocolate log cake the day after, I haven't found any reason to take care of myself! Mixed with the fact that the more I eat, the less water I drink, my skin has been paying the price, and I am dependent on BB cream each day these past six days. (Cheesecake is my kryptonite... it makes me forget the most important lessons on health and beauty.)

In order to combat this, I have now limited myself to one slice of either cake and only one Keebler cookie (ACK My grandmom gave me Sandies the Sunday I received my student's chocolate log cake! Shortbread cookies also make me weak ///crying///) per day. I must also drink at the very least three 48 fl. oz. of water and two cups of green tea on those days I decide to indulge. It's still not healthy to have a slice of cake every day but so long that it's here, I want to surrender to its goodness.

My face, digestive system and my bowels are not having it lately. I'm worried about Thanksgiving and Christmas season coming soon! :( ...American and Vietnamese food combined, and loads of it at that!

This is Annie, crying signing off.

End of the quarter and saturday morning shopping

Well, guys, I made it a fourth of the way through my last year of high school. It went by really quickly and I feel absolutely great about myself and my GPA. (I haven't felt this way at all throughout junior year, so this is a nice change.)
Already in two months I've had some major changes in post-secondary education plans but I feel I'm going to stick to these changes. No, I'm not going to audition to enter any music minor programs because with all the classes I will have to take in my first two years of college in order to transition to Pharmacy School, I won't have time. I can always study with a private teacher alongside studying on my own terms, too, so it's all fine. My friends certainly were expecting me to audition into Music School, but it's not the life for me right now. I do want to enroll in Music School ten years down the road, though. We'll see!

Yesterday was our last day to see the orchestra sub--the handsome one--and strangely it wasn't a bittersweet farewell at all. There were times when he hated working with us and we hated working with him, but we laughed it off yesterday and put it aside to talk about Drake and Degrassi.

<insidejoke>We just want to make music.</insidejoke>

He wrote me a simple and sweet letter of recommendation for the school's Music Honors Society and now we're all Facebook friends, so there's really no bad side to his leave. :)

This morning after Mass my mom took me out to "Asiandale" to shop for BB CREAMS, of all things. I've known about them for a while and have coveted one for so long, but never brought them up because I thought my mom would think I'm materialistic. She found out from friends at work when she brought up her concern for my skin problems and looked up Missha BB Creams on her free time - I'm so touched that she cares about my skin more than I do sometimes! :')
Getting there was no problem. Getting out was, though, because we're women. Walking into a cosmetics store alone is enough to cast this spell of "Let me just sample everything and never return home", plus, the packaging for each product makes you think they're jewels!

Basically, what we ended up bringing home was this:

It looks like a month's worth of free samples.

And what my mom planned to get was this:

Right: Missha Signature Real Complete BB Cream

I'm wearing the BB Cream sampled in the store right now, and for its fourth hour, it still looks flawless. I'll post some photos and do a review on it sooon.

Four-day weekend in the school county means I get to do nothing and hang out with friends care-free. Happy four-day weekend!

I just want to play music

There are times when I feel like Calculus homework helps me practice violin better.

There are also times when I feel like I was meant to play in orchestras for the rest of my life. As a violinist my parents kind of expected that should I excel, it'd be in the solo performing route. And I like playing concertos and sonatas but I usually prefer a LOT of sound, so I turn to large orchestras.
That's my home field, a large orchestra. So, it really bugs me that now that I am an adult, I'm expected to be as competent as a music major to be able to participate in symphony orchestras. I'm slower than most and I try every day, but as time passes from this point, I will soon be incredibly below the standard expectation to join any professional music group. This is my self-loathing part of me speaking, of course, and it's because I have just watched this:

The school looks as hard to get into as Juilliard except it humbles itself so it doesn't have the pressure of the name "Juilliard" slapped on it.

The professors there are a plus, too, take it as you will:

Dimitri Murrath

In all seriousness, though, I really miss the experience of just playing symphonies and orchestral suites. My school orchestra played Brahms Symphony no. 3 two years ago, and I didn't appreciate it then as much as I do today.

And at districts last year I got the chance to play Bartok's Dances of Transylvania and Grieg's Holberg Suite among other beautiful pieces.

I. Prelude and II. Sarabande

III. Gavotte and IV. Air

V. Rigaudon 

I missed regional auditions this year, but I will NOT miss districts! I just want to play beautiful music with equally dedicated people. :(
I guess that is my dream - "A dream that DOESN'T MAKE MONEY."

Brb crying on the inside.

"I am suddenly alive..."

The shock of winter,
The coming on of spring...
Suspended summer nights,
The evening flights that
only fall can bring...

I am suddenly alive,
I would sail across the world for just the color of your eyes.
You appear, appear to me.

--"Octet" from The Light in the Piazza

The past couple weeks have been a blast! My school orchestra had our first concert with our substitute and it turned out to sound really wonderful. I've also noticed that with the music he selected for us, I had to be pushed to think while I'm playing to play it well, and I don't know if it's because he's commanded us a couple times that I finally got to understand how important that was, or if I had grown wiser as a musician and decided to do it on my own too. Anyway, preparation for the first concert and the actual performance turned out to help me grow a lot, and I'm so grateful.
 I wrote a review about it on the orchestra blog.

This week I also have my recital list finalized so I don't have to worry about picking out a new song to practice and to perfect in a limited amount of time because A) I have been working on some beautiful pieces yet never had the chance to perform them, so the recital's perfect for them, and B) I'd much rather spend so much time perfecting the sound of the pieces I already know the notes by heart. I feel like since my recital's in March and also because I am a lazy person when it comes to practicing (Hahaha....), I can get a lot more valuable work done perfecting musicality in four months rather than technicality in a new piece and then having little time to touch on musicality.

So far, the program is:

1. People of the Far North - Nobuo/Hamauzu
2. Attack on Bevelle - Hamauzu
3. Besaid Island - Hamauzu
4. The Swan - Saint Saens
5. Pavane for the Dead Princess - Ravel
6. Vocalise - Rachmaninoff
7. Concerto in B minor op. 35 - Rieding

And it'd last to about 33 minutes at minimum which rocks. I really only need 20 minutes to send to IB, but going over makes me feel great.

I also found out today that my math grade jumped up two letter grades on my report card thanks to a massive test, THANK YOU CALCULUS.

Things are looking well. Annie out!

Practicing

When I was still formally learning piano my mom (my teacher) would always tell me that "practice makes perfect". I carried this on with me as I took on the violin and consequently dropped piano, though over the years it's become second nature that I didn't even hear the phrase anymore. I picked up the piano again two years ago as a method to channel my emotions after a break-up.

I always went to the practice rooms every chance I could during that period and that was when my then ex-boyfriend noticed and helped me practice piano better. Over the years, I had either forgotten or never learned how to practice well, because when "practice makes perfect" suggests that the focus is perfection, I had only thought of the end result. And the end result should indeed be perfect, but what I didn't catch years ago is that the journey to perfection is just as important. Perfection and how to get there are equal, so we have to know how to practice before even getting to sounding right.

It's easy enough for people who have had private instructors to understand. Looking back my mom emphasized slowing down to be able to catch mistakes often. I just never really thought about it and why it works. And it always bothered me to slow down, because I am young and energetic and I like things to be fast-paced. It wasn't until two years ago when I decided to pick up very pointillistic, impressionist piano music that I practiced slow deliberately and saw how effective it was (with the help of my ex-boyfriend, of course, who is in every way a much more accomplished musician than I am). I took it as I was investigating a martial arts fight while I slowed down the time. It's much easier to see precisely how the fighters move about as they move slower than in real time.

Now as a high school senior who finally understands this paradigm, I am more critical of other people's playing, but also more understanding. One of my friends (I'll call "T.") is a skilled pianist and violinist and is continuing to study music in college. I commemorate her, except she is lacking in proper violin skills for one reason only: she does not practice slow. T. has a common issue where in order to sound better, she speeds up her playing each time. She is a much more agile player than I am, but because she doesn't see the importance of slowing down, her playing has become sloppy. Another friend (I'll call "A.") just naturally speeds up as he plays because he has not been a disciplined counter through the years, so he has an even harder time practicing and getting better at home, I imagine, because he is constantly lost.

The problem, here, I believe, is that practicing slow was never enforced and reinforced in them as musicians, and they're not alone. Anyone who is studying music in grade schools is probably lost in understanding the importance of practicing properly. In class, the teachers only have time to enforce how to sound correct without explaining how to get there. It's a terrible loss for students who want to better themselves as performers but can't because they don't have the resources to grow. And this group of people, frankly, make up more than half of my high school orchestra.

Dear Mom, I should be a music education major.

I AM HAPPY

Blog productivity has been way up this month, which is fantastic - I love to write! The same is with all my other work, Calculus and 20th cent History and the like and I have been feeling so great about myself.

Today was even more special because I had apple pie. Just kidding :>
My rival school's orchestra director came to rehearse with MY orchestra today. I met her and her orchestra at a district orchestra event last year, and they are just the greatest group of people ever. Half of them graduated to go on as music majors and it's crazy how dedicated they all are. (It's incredibly inspiring.) I unfortunately cannot say the same about my orchestra, so I was worried she'd be a little turned off about working with us, but she smiled and treated us with love and care. It warmed my heart.

Of course, now I feel that my existence in my own school and orchestra is meaningless because I keep wondering "WHAT IF I had met her orchestra two years ago when I was moving? How different of a person and performer would I be today if I had moved to that school's zone?"
It isn't something I should be thinking about now as a senior, but one simply just can't help it.

And I melt away into the memory and... finish reading about France (the biggest bitch in history) between WWI and WWII.

When I should be doing my 20th cent Topics reading,

I am sight singing. Bird songs. Actually I mean the sounds of birds transcribed and interpreted.
(The key is to at least identify A440 on your own.)

Might I bring your attention to my favorite // the only one in bass clef:

I really wish I knew who this came from. I found it on a music tumblr page I used to follow, and usually original posters are responsible with tagging who the content actually belongs to, but there is no luck with this one. I hope it's just that I'm not trying hard enough, but if I find out, or if anyone lets me know, I'll edit this post and link to where this page came from. :)

Happy Sunday!

Oh man college

Y'know what? I'm seventeen. I've got little life experience to talk about. I prefer to be on house arrest than to have a curfew. I'm a little awkward, and I don't know if any university would be impressed by me. I can't even answer the common application essay prompts easily... My English teacher told me to just use my voice, and I thought "Fine, so I'll just blog this. That's doable."
...
I hate myself:

The fall of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, I believe, has positively impacted my life as it would be twenty years later, being born in the United States. This is not to say that the spread of communism was a blessing itself, because historically, communism had convinced all of its victims that it is the Andrew Jackson to the Constitution, though because these days I see the glass as half-full, I see that communism at least came with a blessing for people like me.

Where am I going with this why do I even care nothing matters I'm done.
All I have left to do are instrumental auditions and a composition portfolio. And James Blake, I have James Blake:

Amazing Cello Duet, 1 cello 4 hands

Since I first saw Walk Off the Earth's cover of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" (5 peeps 1 guitar) I've become fascinated with covers of the same kind. Most of the time all I find are duets on one guitar, which is difficult enough, but it gets a little boring to watch. (Maybe it was the song choices also.)
Anyway thank goodness for my friends on Facebook because I found this on my newsfeed:

I can't watch it without thinking that they're going to finish the song while making out and making love. No disrespect to the performers, but this performance is really sexy. Like, Jason Flemyng sexy.

Jason Flemyng as Frederick Pope in "The Red Violin"

My school's choir teacher conducted us for one rehearsal and told us before we played
         "Y'know, guys, if I were to be reincarnated, I'd be a cellist. It's such a sexy instrument!"
Well, I wish I was a cellist now. :(

Music Post

A lot of make up enthusiasts on YouTube post videos featuring their monthly favorites and talking about them. I don't feel like talking about much, so I'll just post some YouTube videos of some of my favorite songs of this month and last month. I like the idea so I guess this will be a regular thing.


"Crowned & Kissed" Esperanza Spalding


"Blue Bossa" Kenny Dorham (arr. B. Lisovich)


"El Sol Sueno" Astor Piazzolla

AND FINALLY THREE MOVEMENTS OF PETROUSHKAAA <33333333333
I just really love Russian ballet

My last responsibility-free weekend

Two days ago I left for an impromptu trip to NYC to see family members there, help out with their moving out, and roam around Chinatown for some good bánh bao.

I don't get why people like that city sometimes. Yes, there are many major perks, but the cons are just too much that I personally cannot live there. I mean, what's my opinion matter anyway? I'm from NOVA! It's way cleaner in the suburbs and there's an actual diversity here (that's very well blended).

I don't mind a one-day trip to Chinatown NYC, though. I do like getting really good food for reaaallly cheap. I just never feel safe, though, because I'm not Chinese and it's obvious. Heck, I'm a TOURIST. It's one thing to be a non-Chinese walking through Chinatown, but to be carrying a bag-full of two weeks worth of bánh bao as well is like wearing a tee shirt that says "Yes, I will accept crappy service with a side of mockery." That doesn't go for all streets in Chinatown, but it's what I feel through most of the area.

After Chinatown I separated from my parents to stay with my cousin in New Jersey, and I had a lot of fun the next day. We had lunch at Mitsuwa Marketplace and to those of you who are really interested in Japanese food and lifestyle, have lunch there. 
In New Jersey Mitsuwa Marketplace, when you enter the building the size of Costco, you see first the food court. Each kiosk is really one in the same but of different specialty dishes.

photo by yummyinthetummyblog

 I don't speak or understand one bit of Japanese but from what I saw, one kiosk had ramen dishes, another had rice dishes, one for smorgasbords and so on.

 I ordered my first cold tempura soba from this kiosk and now all I want to eat is soba. Okay no, all I want to eat is noodles. I have been craving noodles this whole summer, but not Vietnamese rice noodles or anything my tongue is familiar with. Anyhow, lunch here was perfect and I'd love to go here again and maybe every week. Now if only I could stand the pollution enough to live in New Jersey.

Another great thing is that beyond the food court is a supermarket with loads of Japanese everyday essentials. Y'know, like Giants, but in Japanese. Literally. I could not read anything. I understand numbers, and a pretty woman's face on cardboard advertisement which told me "SKIN CARE".

My history with Japanese skincare products is short, and isn't even worth bragging about. Some four years ago my mom ordered some DHC products from their mail-in catalog one day and bought me their Balancing Lotion and made my skin look and me feel great. Blessed was I that day because I found a shelf for DHC products in the skincare aisle! It was the only product line written entirely in English! I was feeling a bit cheap when it came to shopping there because I had spent $8.80 on lunch and didn't feel like handing over any more bills. BUT, I decided that day to end my search for plain facial cleansers that would not break out my skin any more with DHC Cleansing Foam. I was looking for their Washing Powder but it wasn't there so I settled for this, which is still great. After two times using it I know I'll be using this for a while and buy it again when it's out. 

Now, as I finish up this blog post and also my IB HOA IA and IB Eng summer assignment, I'd like to take a moment to say this: I am a high school senior, and I'm scared shitless.

 

Art and I wish I could take Physics HL

I never managed to muster up any more fucks to give interest about my own art anymore and now the painting I was so proud of and excited about working on is left unfinished... like most other projects I have started in the past.

by Nozmo

Thinking about it is about as embarrassing as going back to visit my old SmackJeeves account (which I finally deleted thank goodness) and seeing how alive and immature my personality was and what my aesthetic interests at the time were. I was in middle school, and nothing about myself back then makes me proud in any way, though I guess I should be happy that for whatever reason I'm much wiser about what to say, what to draw and what to watch on the internet now as a result. Life is funny.

When I did go back to Smackjeeves, and it's been five years, I revisited some old friends' accounts, and then friends of theirs, and then friends of theirs, and in the end I discovered some really extraordinary artists. Every artist gets into sequential art it seems, and only a handful can keep up with continuing their stories, for instance, Nozmo, who I really admire for her comics Alternate and Todd & Petunia.

So, It's really disappointing to see great stories discontinue, or even bad stories but wonderful pictures. Out of the many beautiful yet discontinued comics I read today on SmackJeeves, a comic by Jillian Iscaro really stuck out to me. Her comic was based on Michio Kaku's Hyperspace so the art alone was wonderful and I wanted to find more of her work, and as someone who doesn't really like to talk I simply added her to my watchlist on DeviantART and followed her Tumblr, which I encourage everyone to do too, and here's why:

I love the variety in her work from style to color but what I find so interesting is her perspective, and I guess that's what happens when an artist takes an interest in physics.
Finding and admiring artists I find on the internet does give me some motivation to draw again, but from the time I've taken today to read and blog, and given that I have one week left before the school year begins and I need to dedicate all of this time to START and finish my summer assignments, I'm just going to continue sitting here in this pit of non-creativity and rot while I breath in allllll my jealousy and angst.

Kirkland Signature products

I was shopping at Costco today and found that Kirkland has now launched a skincare line at the beginning of this month and already has received very positive feedback. I was particularly drawn to the "Revitalizing Face Serum" and pretty much anchored myself in Costco's cosmetics aisle for a while. I was surprised and I didn't know what to think about it because while I do like Kirkland for their consumable products, I remembered how bad it was for my skin last time I bought a "Vitamin-enriched" skincare product (Thank you, Trader Joe's...) and so decided it was much safer to drop the temptation of buying it and to just go home to read what other people say about it.

Now, honestly people don't know how to help other people with their reviews, but regardless, I'm impressed and have no qualms about shedding some more cash to buy the face serum next time I'm there. It's $20, and it's from Kirkland.

Here's why I like Kirkland:

A few years ago I cut dairy milk from my diet and asked my parents to let me live on soymilk. They were okay with buying Silk Soymilk for a while. It was the soymilk my lactose-intolerant cousin drinks and it was a good brand to start with. Though it was really good, it quickly became expensive per half-gallon, so I had to go back to dairy milk. Easy enough to deal with, I just had to skip breakfast from then on. I'm not lactose-intolerant to the degree of legitimately allergic children, but I couldn't and cannot deal with dairy milk anymore. I did buy other brands of soymilk occasionally on the days I was craving cereal, but nothing else was as good as Silk. One day at Costco we found Kirkland Signature soymilk and my parents decided to buy it because in the end we'd have more soymilk for less money. Kirkland held the same promise for satisfaction as Silk, and both brands have provided me with delicious soymilk. Today I still drink Kirkland soymilk because it's delicious and really does give the most bang for my buck.

Another Kirkland product won my heart this summer when I was in pursuit of good and affordable green tea. My aunt likes to bring bags of loose tea leaves (of tea I don't even know the names of in English) from Vietnam when she visits, and loose-leaf teas take too much time and effort for me to prepare and as an American, I like things to be instant. Sometimes my mom buys small boxes of green tea that hold 20 tea bags but they are expensive to keep buying in the long run when we want to drink green tea every day for 365 days. Some years ago my dad's friend gave us a box of a hundred green tea bags from a Korean tea brand and it was so great to make delicious tea effortlessly for months and months, but when we were out we couldn't seem to find the same brand in the Asian supermarkets here. (I'm sure they're here, but my mom's sense of only noticing things of low-price must not have picked it up... AKA too much $$$.) One time we bought a really cheap box of 100 green tea-bags and it was really worth its price ($1.99). I've only rarely had good green tea since.
By the end of the Vietnamese summer seminars program I was attending, we had a party and by the tea station I found Kirkland green tea. (It's not all Kirkland, the tea blend belongs to Ito En which is supposedly the top manufacturer of green tea in Japan but is packaged under Kirkland.) It was a blend of matcha and sencha and I was really digging it from the first sip. :) My mom was impressed too and we both sought out to find it on our next trip to Costco. And what a deal! 100 bags of really GOOD green tea for only $14! For 100 bags of less-than-Ito En-good green tea, that's $20 roughly, so I was ecstatic from picking it out of the aisle to lining up to buy it. To anyone who is interested in green tea, this blend is really interesting. Sencha typically brews yellow in 3 minutes, but this sencha-matcha blend brews light green in 30 seconds, and really, you could brew this blend of green tea for 3 minutes even, but I stop at 30 seconds because I like drinking it green.

Today I don't touch other brands of soymilk or green tea, and that's why I'm really looking forward to trying out the Kirkland skincare products or just the face serum at least. Now, if only I could find some cheap and delicious mooncakes seeing as it's almost time for the harvest moon...

Fenwick Island

Just came back from my last beach trip of the summer. Looking back, my summer was pretty alright.
I didn't get any creative projects I had planned to get to during the school year done, but I got loads of sleep and saw some movies and animes I really wanted to watch. I didn't even practice as much as I wanted to. Summer just makes me so dull... until I go to the beach. I guess my three beach trips this summer is all I'll remember about this year when I look back. Which is alright. I don't remember much these days anyway.

I do remember to pack my camera every time I'm out though, and to set my camera's picture quality to VGA when I take photos hundreds at a time for stop motion projects.

So......

 

Aaaand I leave this blog post with this:

644 photos used;

"Who's Theme" by Nujabes and MINMI

(from Samurai Champloo)

Concerts I'm sorry I whine.

I really just need to go see an orchestra concert. I have missed three opportunities last year. Three.

Conductor Christopher Zimmerman

The first opportunity was a week after my birthday, the FSO was playing Stravinky's Firebird Suite, then Liszt and Sibelius concertos. Honestly I don't care much for those concertos but hey, the chance to see and hear FIREBIRD? Missed. and pissed because I saw the conductor's schedule and saw that in June the FSO will be playing...

Debussy's La Mer next to Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.
That's my two favorite composers back-to-back.

So, knowing that I thought "Hey, knowing Mom, I'm only allowed out once a year. I might as well wait."

Nope. IB Exams. I forgot, and so just because of IB exams I wasn't allowed one night out that month.

More Zimmerman

At the time I also really just wanted to see this man again and thank him for the help he gave our school orchestra back in February.
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While we were working on Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5, he pulled us together and helped us win Superior ratings at Festival the next month. He also complimented me loads and since then I felt a strikingly painful -similar to a- sexual desire to see him conduct another orchestra.       

Phew. So the last chance for this year was to see my friend's community orchestra playing Bizet's Carmen. I was pretty pumped and ready to go until I saw that the location was in Maryland, and there was no way I was allowed to go to Maryland just for a concert. 

I'm sorry I whine. It's just that the beginning of a fresh new season is coming up and I intend to get my ass into the FSO concert hall and sit down for a good two hours to soak up what I have been yearning for years.

Insert more photos of Christopher Zimmerman here ok buye.

Texture that shakes my bones

I know very well already that orchestral and Latin and even LATIN ORCHESTRAL music moves me so easily like driftwood, yet I still don't know why I startle myself even today each time I feel the need to dance when I listen to bossa nova and/or samba.

This happened at Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday at the CD listening station when I selected "Brazil" repeatedly. I was listening to the same excerpt over and over and it didn't matter, not until my mom was catching up to me and almost saw me swaying at least.

More on orchestral music, on the same YouTube channel which hosted a video of my favorite performance of Drdla's Carmen Fantasy, I found a bunch of orchestrated (strings only) performances of famous samba and bossa nova songs!

The arranger I believe is Ukrainian and I know for a fact the conductor of this.. Ukrainian orchestra... is Ukrainian. So I'm really bummed that 1) It's not popular enough to have download links and 2) I have to man up and ask to order a CD via Google Translate. You never get anything done in Google Translate. I wish I had Fairy God Parents and could wish for a multi-lingual tongue and be able to converse with these guys and compliment the arranger especially for his work because they really are spectacular arrangements.

And I say this because of texture. I didn't realize until these performances that part of Brazilian music is big on texture next to rhythm, which really helps to create the texture anyway, along with instrumentation. Because instrumental bossa nova isn't authentic without the Classical guitar, and when you hear chords on a Classical guitar, it's so much more calm than on steel. It's gentle and deserves a percussion rhythm just as calm, and together, that's the texture of linen, to me. I really do want to say silk but that is more Chinese music.

What I find so enjoyable about these performances, also, is that I get the same feeling when I listen to authentic bossa nova when I listen to these. I guess I also feel a little more sexier too. The natural texture of Brazilian music is really channeled well through a string orchestra, so it feels reeaallly good to listen to.

As I count the next 342 days until I get to see Rio de Janeiro with my own eyes, I leave you with a link to this orchestra's channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/pavliygeo It's a fantastic orchestra and I hope you enjoy!

I want to go to Brazil what do

In the near future I have two opportunities: World Youth Day 2013 and the next Olympics; and by then I guess I should have the means to travel. Wishful thinking.

Gil and Adriana

I'm equally interested in meeting Catholics around the world as well as seeing the greatest athletes together, but even more so, I just want to walk the streets of Rio and absorb the culture. I love Brazil in the same way Gil from Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris loves France.

I don't know too much about life in Brazil, just some of the architecture and other important sites. Should I go with a nearby parish to World Youth Day 2013 though, I'd be so psyched to visit the Cristo Redentor. Sure, there are plenty of tall statues of Jesus where I live and in places I've visited like La Vang, but it's because I think it is the most famous tall statue of Jesus and that it's in the city of SAMBA that attracts me. <cough>And speaking of samba</cough>

Anyway, if I ever go to Mass in Brazil, I bet my weak little conscious will end up singing the tune of Corcovado behind the Our Father. Sad but true. I really only love Brazil for the music. But hopefully, if I go to any of these events, I'd be able to see so much more. And find a Brazilian boyfriend who plays drum set.

All fantasies aside, the bigger dilemma in all this is what to do with my money now that I'm working (violin + piano teacher). I do really want a DSLR. It's time to upgrade from my 12 year-old Fujifilm pseudo-DSLR, which hasn't ever done me wrong, ever, it's just time. I also need a car, because aside from travel, I actually live in the US, and you need to drive to get to places here in the US.

Siiiigggggh. What do I neeeeeeeeeeeeed

Myrtle beach and flickr uploads!

Myrtle Beach

This past week spent at Myrtle Beach was a blast. It's not every day - or every year - that I get to see relatives from Florida, so when we do meet for the first time in ten years, it's a really refreshing split-second to just wash away what happened that made me "me" these past ten years and be cool and just say "hi". So, I spent the week with some people I was very familiar with and got to re-meet not-so-familiar yet really interesting people as well.

When I got to the beach I was expecting some clear blue water and beautiful white sand, but I quickly learned that I had been in dream land since my last beach trip to Punta Cana last year.

Punta Cana

 No matter, it was still a joy to crash into waves and fall into warmer waters to escape the oppressing sun. What rocks about Myrtle Beach is the social environment that's a little different than the kind I'm so used to in Virginia Beach. It's just a bit more lackadaisical over there than in Virginia Beach, but not so much that the beach experience gets me a little jaded. My cousin described it as "Y'know, the south!" It actually reminds me a little of Vietnam at night. People just hop on mopeds and ride, and it's not a waste of money to rent mopeds for a day or two because everything's worth the money at the beach.

Other activities like Parasailing and Banana boating are pretty fun there, too. I don't remember ever doing these things in Virginia Beach because just the ocean and the boardwalk were enough for me and my family. I went banana boating and jet skiing for the first time this year, and for those who haven't and want to, it's ten degrees of fear lower than roller coasters. No worries.

Five days at the Ocean was enough for all of us, so on the last full day we spent most of the time shopping (at nearby outlets) and cruising on mopeds. My dad had a lot of fun on those. I guess he felt like he was reliving his past life in Vietnam over twenty years ago, so to explain why he took me out on the highway at 1 A.M. at 80-90 MPH. The next morning was slower as we went on the main road, which gave me a chance to take over 1,000 photos for a nice 1-minute long stop-motion video!


And now that it's all over, it's time to actually start on summer assignments and help Dad nag my mom about getting a motorcycle.

The lame-r things in my life

I don't have to play blitzball ever again. Because I won the Jupiter Sigil and nothing's more valuable than that.

...
Because now Wakka has a full-powered celestial weapon. And now I own the Omega Ruins.

Aaaaaaaaand guess who's not practicing these days... (ﾉ￣д￣)ﾉ

My first painting in 2012 among other things

Wow I haven't blogged in a while, but more importantly, it's July and I haven't painted THIS YEAR until earlier today. Last year I discovered how thrilling and liberating painting could be. Yes, much less cathartic than pencil drawing, but nonetheless painting, as I established in the summer of last year, is my...quasi passion. I don't know really. There's music, and anyone who's listened to me mention anything regarding music knows that's my passion. I just can't put music and art on the same scale.

And art came first, for the record.

So here I am on a lazy morning. I change my Facebook timeline header/photo/whatever it's called to an old design of Zanarkand from FFX and a friend tells me I should start drawing again, because I haven't really been doing that this year either. I don't usually get motivated that easily, but I guess it's because lately I've also been telling myself to stop anime-binging and start drawing and painting again that having someone to simply tell me to draw again was a sufficient enough push.

I've noticed I like coral reefs and marine life. And noodle soups. So um.

Hey Aaron if you're reading this, this is for you. Kind of. Eh. Thanks. I suppose when this is done I'll also finally have something new to post onto Flickr and deviantART, because Lord knows I have nothing else to photograph anymore. My face? Hah. My profile pictures on Facebook lately have been anime characters and currently it's:

Hahn Bin from his Sarasate Carmen Fantasy performance. It was not impressive. It was actually pretty disastrous considering he graduated from Julliard and was Itzhak Perlman's protege! <bitterness>Child prodigy my ass. Get those false harmonics down with speed and then I'll put you on the some scale with Sarah Chang.</bitterness>
I guess he just had a lot of shit from people like me just before the performance. ~Not sorry~

It's late so I'll go. I've got a new violin student first thing tomorrow morning!

I'm a high school senior and I bake and watch anime

Friday, 15 June 2012 was my last day of my junior year of high school. Essentially this means I am now a high school senior. I have no feelings as of now. That last week of school was patterned in stress in the morning, lackadaisical in the afternoon, and baking whatever the heck I'd like in the evening. I had senior friends, but instead of crying over no longer seeing them, I think I am more calm because I have faith that they'll do well and that I'll do well without them knowing that they are doing well on their own.
Also, it is the first week of the summer. I am kind of in limbo as a given. I've taken up baking recently, though, so I am indulging in this new hobby to use all this time for not really having to do anything anymore for about two months!
I'd just like to share below the photos I took:

And now I am all out of bread flour! Among all the baking I have also started watching anime again. Right now I'm continuing a series I started in April that I absolutely cannot stop loving! From the director of Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe and the musical director of the same anime, Yoko Kanno, is Kids on the Slope, a wonderful anime about two school boys who, regardless of each of their social issues, become intimate through jazz music. My description doesn't do it justice. Here's a clip:


Most of the performing goes to pianist Takashi Matsunaga and drummer Shun Ishiwaka.
I'm a big Nodame Cantabile fan, but this is far more satisfying to watch as dir. Watanabe made sure the animations for the movements were not only realistic but also precise. Now that I look back, all I really watched in Nodame Cantabile were just PICTURES of people playing piano. That's no one's fault, though.
Anyway, this anime's got my thumbs up, both! And now I go back to crunchyroll to watch episode 9.

CARMEN!

Evil...

I know I said I have my music chosen for college and stuff, but now I'm really wanting to just play a movement from a Carmen Fantasy. I say "a" because I'm not going to touch THE Carmen Fantasy, I refuse to touch anything by Sarasate. Just last week, though, I found a much easier arrangement really similar to Sarasate's version by Franz Alois Drdla. Nothing's stopping me from learning it! I just don't know if I'll get this down technically AND musically in time for auditions! Especially since now that I have my teacher back from maternity leave, all she wants to do with me is Kreutzer and Mazas etudes, which are fine, but with only single-hour, weekly lessons, we both think the most important things to work on are those etudes, among other dreadful things like Carl Flesch scales and Suzuki...

I know, not mature, but I'm allowed have feelings and express them on this blog regardless...

Sarah Chang (left), Plácido Domingo (middle)

One thing's nearly set about Carmen though - I get to play it at the senior concert the following school year! The version that I have comes with piano arrangement though, and I know an orchestra accompaniment exists, somewhere out-there, either composed by him or arranged by another, and I want it... You just can't get Latin music across on piano! These Carmen legends (Sarah Chang known for her Sarasate Carmen Fantasy at age 10 and Plácido Domingo for being the best damn José ever) know how to perform Carmen, and I'm inspired every time I look at the Aragonaise movement on my stand to play it at a quarter of the quality they gave. Bahhahh ain't goin'a happen, but out of everything I've played for myself and for others, Carmen probably means the most to me, so in theory I should play well whenever I should perform... *crossing fingers*

Now I'm off to finishing off the kinako dango I made this morning and maybe actually practice..

kinako dango + azuki bean paste