born to be forever

‘practice makes perfect,’ they sometimes say. they being that generic group of people who say things. i caught myself quoting this quip not long ago, and i quickly corrected myself. ‘no it doesn’t, actually,’ i reflected.

certainly sometimes practice can lead to perfection, but often ‘perfection’ is unreachable, and rightfully so, causing us to strive for some unobtainable ideal, and in doing so pushing ourselves and others farther.

ian came up with a mathematical response to the expression ‘practice makes perfect’ with which i quite agree:

lost in a february song

hello! happy february! it’s been a month now, so i’ve decided to revisit my new year’s resolutions to check in on my progress:

1. postpone certain procrastinatory activities until homework is complete

i’ve been trying a new method that i call the ‘cycle method’ – i star tasks that absolutely must be completed and do a bit of each, rotating through the list. at the end of each cycle is something more fun that still needs to be done (like writing this blog post, or cleaning a section of my room). it seems to be working so far!

2. find more breakfast food options

i’m making a list, and possibly a weekly calendar. my greatest new find is quesadillas, or anything in a wrap form.

3. expand my cooking repertoire

ian and i made fajitas…

4. distribute holiday presents/cards in a timely manner

so far i’m two for two. let the valentines day card-making challenge begin!

5. come up with some sort of exercise routine

i’ve done nearly nothing with this so far. i just walk more quickly sometimes. small steps (but actually large steps, literally…).

6. give myself a weekly allowance of $10

this didn’t work. i went into debt too quickly to feed myself and so forth…instead i’ve been keeping a detailed spreadsheet of my purchases and hopefully i’ll come up with a better plan from there. trying to work on the tight budget for a couple of weeks did make me quite mindful of what i need verses what i want, and that did help.

7. read 50 new books <— this is my main one

see my progress on the 2010 reading tab :) also, i completed 21 days of reading for pleasure every day, with the help of a brilliant site called habitforge.

8. see 10 plays

none yet. but i’m seeing the student-directed play this week!

9. watch 43 movies

i saw ’sherlock holmes,’ ‘fever pitch,’ ‘hamlet 2,’ ‘the princess and the frog,’ and ‘he’s just not that into you.’ pretty good for movie-shy me.

10. get training in shakespearean acting

i’m working on applying to some summer programs. i’m also in a play now, and although not shakespearean, it’s great to get feedback from a director and to sit in on other actors’ rehearsals to watch them develop.

11. visit 10 museums/aquariums/historic sites

i saw harry potter: the exhibition at the museum of boston!

12. consistently put nerdfighter notes in john green books at bookstores

i’ve left several at some barnes & nobles around the area and i even got a response from someone! it was really sweet.

13. post on my blog more regularly

i’m really trying to post at least once a week and to make up for the weeks that i don’t!

14. attend 10 concerts

i’ve been to two school concerts so far: jazz, blues, & percussion and the voice recital. i also performed in/attended a concert by the nec prep school called ‘today’s youth perform today’s music.’

15. reread through the potter series

i’m still at the beginning of sorcerer’s stone, but i did start!

stories from the nerd herd

i recently finished an addictive anthology of short stories called geektastic, edited by holly black and cecil castellucci. it’s like a collection of little reminders that there are other geeks out there thinking and living the same geekish dreams as i am.

for the week that i was reading the book, i looked like this pretty much all the time (although i did change my outfit daily, as you can imagine :)).

bow, small shop in newton | dress, lace skirt, korean store in fairfax | sweater top, gap

it’s christmastime in the city

obviously, it is not christmastime in the city, as it is mid-january. that was a month ago. but i just found these images from when my family went to dinner in boston one december eve and thought that i would share them before the snow leaves the ground (there is lots of it now, and apparently more to come).

this is faneuil hall, all lit up.

there were lights on the trees too, although much less yellow in person.

this isn’t focused enough to be considered an ‘outfit shot’ per se, but i’ll give details anyway:

knit hat, h&m | black corduroy trench, anthropologie | lace leggings, h&m | legwarmers, white sling bag, primark | rain boots, nordstroms

you’d be mad to try and rob it

My lovely friend Tori gave me a Christmas present.

This is a generally awesome present for a Harry Potter fan, but it also completes a small part of me. You see, when I was 9, I bought this book:

It’s very funny to read now because it was released just after Warner Brothers announced that they would be making a movie out of the Potter books, so there were a few pages devoted to speculation about the movies. There are also pages in the book section with question marks over the covers, because only books one through four had been released.

I went through the book and circled all of the things that I owned. At the time I did own a Gringotts bank, which I still use today – I fill it up with spare change and empty it on my birthday to receive $30-40 worth of coins – but my bank wasn’t pictured in the book, so I had to circle this one instead:

Although I loved my own Gringotts bank very much, I secretly wanted this one instead because I liked how it displayed Harry’s vault in the chambers of Gringotts.

So now, thanks to Tori, my childhood dream has been fulfilled, and now I have not one, but TWO lovely Gringottses, so I can safely say that I am one up on Diagon Alley (although I still possess no Flouish and Blotts, so I think that maybe we’re even now).

Here are my two Gringotts banks. I use the new one for pounds and the old one for American coins :)

sugar sugar

i promised to explain how i had baked ’several cakes,’ and here they are:

yes, i made a periodic table made out of cupcakes. it was a christmas present for ian, and twas quite fun to make. the boxes are custom-created too :)

that promise made up for all your faults. and the promise i gave you made up for mine.

thanks to 43things.com i can track my 2010 resolutions!

1. postpone certain procrastinatory activities until homework is complete
2. find more breakfast food options
3. expand my cooking repertoire

4. distribute holiday presents/cards in a timely manner

5. come up with some sort of exercise routine

6. give myself a weekly allowance of $10

7. read 50 new books <— this is my main one

8. see 10 plays

9. watch 43 movies

10. get training in shakespearean acting

11. visit 10 museums/aquariums/historic sites

12. consistently put nerdfighter notes in john green books at bookstores

13. post on my blog more regularly

14. attend 10 concerts

15. reread through the potter series

happy new year! what are your resolutions?

roll me away tonight

hello. it is late (1:11 am. am i allowed to make a wish? probably not. although technically, the 11:11 on which i usually wish is also 22:11, so maybe 1:11 am is better after all. who knows.) and i’m on reserve battery power.

it’s been one of those nights in which i felt quite tired and quite ready to fall right asleep, but then i  felt suddenly restless. tonight it was probably from watching 20 essential vlogbrothers videos, which wake me up because they make me think. i was also extremely excited to rediscover an old youtube favourite of mine (missxrojas) in a nerdfighters happy dance montage of all places. i recognized her blue walls and harry potter posters, and weirdly enough i was just thinking of her yesterday because of her video about baking a cake to celebrate having 300 subscribers, because i too was baking, well, several cakes (you’ll see).

anyway, the whole ordeal got me thinking about the thrill of rediscovering old things. the main one for me has been harry potter. i have been an avid harry potter fan for nearly ten years now, and if there were some sort of chart representing the amount of time i spend obsessing over various things, harry potter would most definitely take the win. i do sink in and out of obsessions, but harry potter returns most frequently, usually over long lonely summers. well this summer i reread all of the potters except the seventh, so i decided that during my winter holiday i would listen to the seventh on audio while i tidy my room. and it has been amazing. harry potter is that family to which i can return at any point and always feel welcome. it’s sort of like when i listen to the audiobooks on an airplane, fall asleep, and wake up again not realizing that i had missed several tracks while sleeping because i have practically memorized the text. it’s something that i just know.

and as i was reminiscing i thought that it seemed suitable to post this on my blog, another treasure that i tend to abandon for long stretches of time and then return to for long stretches of time. i’m going to really try to post more often and more insightfully (apparently not a word), just as i have been making an effort to spend more quality time with harry and to write more lengthy entries in my daily journal than just ‘hello, i am sleepy, goodnight,’ or something similar.

but now that i have madly scribbled this down,

i am sleepy, goodnight.

trio of love songs

i’m trying to get more in the habit of posting often, and of adding variety to what i post, since it’s been a bit formulaic lately. so today i shall share with you my favourite poem, the second in a trio of love songs by sylvia plath.

My love for you is more
athletic than a verb,
agile as a star
the tents of sun absorb.

Treading circus tightropes
of each syllable,
the brazen jackanapes
would fracture if he fell.

Acrobat of space,
the daring adjective
plunges for a phrase
describing arcs of love.

Nimble as a noun,
he catapults in air;
a planetary swoon
could climax his career,

but adroit conjunction
eloquently shall
link to his lyric action
a periodic goal.

is this a poem about love or about language?

it’s a whale of a tale!

today ian and i made aquatic gingerbread critters.

two turtles, two walruses, one [avenging] narwhal, one platypus, two whales, and a manatee.

happy christmas!