Keep Loving, Keep Flying

Surreal

I am about 3 weeks into my first year in college... at NYU! How surreal is that? It's odd, because for some reason, it feels rather normal, even though CA and NY are totally different in so many aspects. I guess that's good that I didn't get shell-shocked or something though, heh.

I also came across a quote today which I loved, so I thought I'd share it with anybody who might come across this little ol post.

"There are people who are generic. They make generic responses and they expect generic answers. They live inside a box and they think people who don't fit into their box are weird. But I'll tell you what, generic people are the weird people. They are like genetically-manipulated plants growing inside a laboratory, like indistinguishable faces, like droids. Like ignorance."

 - C. JoyBell C.

Also fitting with this theme of surrealism and what seems normal and thinking outside of the box, I'd like to share with you some surrealist pieces of artwork by Salvador Dali, James Marsh, and Vladimir Kush; one of them is even now my new laptop wallpaper! :D

First off is the already commonly known, very famous, and one of my all-time favorites: "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali.

Here is a piece by James Marsh, an artist I've only recently come across.

Another piece by James Marsh. 

This is "African Sonata" by Vladimir Kush, which is another one of the ones I've liked for quite some time now.

"At the End of the Earth" by Vladimir Kush; I only came across this piece today, but I love his vision!

Another piece by Vladimir Kush, which is actually currently my laptop background!

"Fauna in La Mancha" by Vladimir Kush; I was actually trying to decide if i wanted this or the previous one as my background for a while.

I loved this piece by Vladimir Kush, mainly because it incorporated main pieces from several of his other works; you should be able to recognize the butterfly windmills from "Fauna in La Mancha" and the cloud hot air balloon from pictures displayed above; he has another piece that I have not posted here that has a boat with butterflies in the place of the sails, which is also incorporated in here. This piece as absolutely beautiful with its attention to detail while questioning the details of reality.

Surreal
See U RREAL soon [; Yea, I'm lame :P Or maybe I'm just thinking outside the box and you're weird ;P <3

Final Gov/Econ Project

For our final AP Government/Economics HP project, my teacher said we could write an essay or do any form of a project by ourselves or in a group of our choice on an issue of our choice. Gives us a pretty wide range, so seeing my classmates work should be interesting! My group consists of Neda, Blanca, and I... we decided to do a blog on Capital Punishment/the Death Penalty... I set up the blog... but realized after I put in way too much work into it that I had created it under my new NYU account... which doesn't allow me to switch it to my personal account which houses both this blog and my writing/poetry blog: P.O.V. - Perspective of Vanessa. Hopefully, NYU doesn't choose to delete the blog, especially before my teacher has a chance to see it and grade it! o: It's not completely done yet, but if you want to see the what's done so far/the progress: Consequence or Incompetence.

Long Weekends, Senior Stuff, End of the Year and more

I have been so busy and wiped out by the end of the day that I haven't been updating this blog, so here's to me catching up!

On the final day of my four day weekend... I went to Knotts with my little sister and one of my close friends, Gauri[: We got there around when they opened and left about 8 hours later. While we were there, we obviously went on the rides, grabbed some fries for lunch as well as some fro-yo, and... stalked one of our friends, Chris, who works there :P We also saw a TON of little kiddies from elementary schools and junior highs. We were wondering WHY they were everywhere, until we figured out there was a 5k marathon run there earlier that day. It was pretty interesting hearing bits and pieces of conversations that completely tipped us off that they weren't from this area.

The next day at school, it appears many of the seniors were... sick :P The rest of us who hadn't caught the 24 day virus ended up playing cards and such. My first period was actually spent alternating between reading a book I brought and arguing/debating with our teacher x]

The following day, the seniors have all recovered, and we all showed up at school dressed up and ready for our senior presentations/interviews. Some people were rather nervous about it, and many people have complained about the work we had to put into creating our portfolios, but, ultimately, the experience was rather fun for most of us. If anybody reading this is looking for advice on a future presentation or interview, all I have to tell you is have a firm handshake, smile, be courteous, relax, be yourself, and talk. That's really all there is to it... oh. and dress professionally, obviously[: Not only that, but Senator Dianne Feinstein visited our school that day to talk to our students. Unfortunately, I could not go listen in, because that was my presentation time slot, but many of my friends where there and filled me in on what happened. We were also featured in the OC Register for this reason... there were some factual errors in the article, but several of the students at our school guarded the comments section against other posters with negative things to say about our school.

Yesterday, we went to our classes and all that normal stuff... and then... we got our yearbooks! :D yay. They're also 3D.. pretty cool[:

Birthday and LONG WEEKENDS cont.

Mm. This long weekend so far has been fabulously blissful[:

My day today? Well I actually had a board meeting for HOSA from like 9 til noon, but that's not at tedious as it sounds, and it went by faster than we expected it to, especially with mangos, chips, and chocolate covered blueberries ;D I went home and actually had time to relax and read for fun, something I love to do, but haven't been able to do as much during my high school years (not to say I didn't, but not as much as I would have liked to). Then I took a lovely nap... and awoke freaked out because I wasn't sure if it was the same day or if I had slept all the way through the night into the next morning... don't blame me: it was around 6 PM and was still super sunny and bright out my window and the numbers on my digital clock have become faint AND I wasn't wearing my glasses or contacts :P Afterwards, my mom, my sister, and I went shopping for a while before our entire family headed to Stacked (for the first time) for my belated birthday dinner :D SOOOOOOOO filled: Chips, Onion Strings, Chili, Double Stacked Burger, and my birthday Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich ;D Yum.

Ready for more adventuring tomorrow! [:

Birthday and LONG WEEKENDS! :D

Well. I guess it's not technically my birthday anymore, because it passed midnight... but this weekend's been amazing so far hehe [:

Saturday, May 26th: Joint 18th birthday party for me, my best friend Jeffrey, and our other good friend Llewellyn! [: We partied all day and all night really :P Haha, the last person to leave left at 2 AM or so. The remaining people slept over. We didn't end up sleeping until past 4 AM... on the hardwood floor of my living room... AFTER some late night snacking on chips and salsa and cold pasta :P hehe

After we woke up on...
Sunday, May 27th: My actual birthday!
We ate popcorn chicken, muffins, chips, and soda for breakfast (errrr... brunch? morning snackage? idk :P) before Jeffrey came by to take us out to birthday lunch at Buca di Beppo (yum. more pasta! :DD hehe) and shopping ^^ Afterwards, I hung out for a while with one of my friends who I haven't gotten to hang out with for a long time. Later, I ended up going to hang out with my brother, his basketball teammates, and their families. Oh the wonderful feeling of being greeted by excited screaming little kids' "VANESSA!"s :D We hung out by the pool and a bonfire in their backyard. We munched on dinner and then made SMORESSSS :D hehe. Before watching the second Fantastic 4 movie.

Yep. All in all a great birthday celebration [:
And on top of that... I don't have to go to school tomorrow (er today? O.o) or Tuesday! :P yay for long weekends! :DD

Happy Birfday Best Fwend[:

Today is my best friend since the 3rd grade's birthday! o: I consider him my big brother[:

Happy birthday, Jeffrey Hsu. From Vanessa Wu. (heh. we even rhyme :P)

All in All

All in all an amazing day!
Didn't have to go to any actual academic classes all day. Spent majority of my time at school either talking to people, eating, or just helping out one of the school counselors with one of my friends. Then some of my friends and I went to go make picture reservations for prom which is coming up. After than, those friends and some of my other friends and I went to go eat, eat, and eat some more! :D Tasty Garden. Half and Half. Fluff Ice. Phoenix. and Crepe Luv. We intended on taking Cue pictures as well, but the one we were going to seems to have been replaced by some insurance place ]: Then we got stuck in a patch of unmoving traffic on the freeway back D: But in the meantime we sang and laughed and talked between the two cars with our cell phones :P heh... now... back to school tomorrow with two finals! o: ahh!

"Poetic Bloodlines" - Gemineye (Def Jam Poetry)

One night, God came to me in a dream
With a scheme that seemed to be out of this world
He approached me and opened his robe
And showed me a hypodermic needle in the shape of a pen
And my first reaction was to step back fast
But then God grabbed me and said
“Slow down my child,
I’ve got a job for you to do”
And with a burst of light God grabbed my arm
And said “I mean you no harm”
And he pushed the pen in
And it filled my arteries and God charted me
To write some new shit, some true shit, something just for you shit
And when I was done with part one
God said “write some part two shit”
He injected me with Billy’s Blues and a muse of Langston Hughes
And God said “you’ve acquired some of the tools in the school you’ve been attending
But now it’s time to stop pretending”
And he started sending into my bloodstream
The poetic feats of John Keats
And the published greats of W.B. Yeats
And just when I thought God was through
He started slipping me hits of Maya Angelou
And God asked “do you know what I’ve handed you?”
And my response was “No” and God said “let me show”
And he continued to fill my veins the same way he had been
Giving me a fix of Emily Dickenson and my bloodstream seemed to scream
As God gave me the liquidated literary genius of W.E.B.
And I got lost between doses of Robert Frost
And my eyes got blurry in a flurry
And I was no longer seeing ‘em but I could feel Emerson, Tennyson, and Stevenson
And God said “you won’t get far without Paul Orange Dunbar
And you can’t start spittin ‘til I’ve given you Whitman”
And God kept filling me and it felt like he was killing me
And I closed my arm tight and God snapped it back open
And screamed “you’re not yet ready to write”
He said “tonight has just begun
Everything’s alright my son
You see I need you
I use poetry to teach people
The world I created has been overrun by ignorant thinking
And I need poets to take the world back and break the curse
Now unbend your arm so I can give you William Wordsworth
”And again the pen was shoved in my veins and God grabbed the reigns
And as if I was a mule
He said “I use you as my tool and plow the field with you
Fulfilling empty minds’ needs while planting knowledge seeds
No longer will there be a flourishing time for malnourishing minds
I want you to make intelligence a law cuz ignorance is a crime
Now I need you to go and reap what you sow
While captivating minds like Edgar Allen Poe
I gave you the wings so now fly like the raven
This world needs saving
Feel free to fight off your fears
Cuz they’ll disappear within this injection
Of my tears which contains the remains of great things gone
And new things to come beyond the next dawn
You’re the next in a bloodline of greats
You are a poet
You command the attention of large groups
You ready the troops for revolution
You write words that can commend or condemn
Turn boys into men
Make other poets push pens
And you must be about something more than slam scores based on ten
Because you are a poet
Think about all the great things poets have accomplished
And when the writing gets rough
Hold on to your pen
And don’t drop this
Always take time in your mind to reflect back on the fact
That you’re the next to step forth
From a poetic bloodline”

Dresses Part 3

     

Bold Colors and Leopard Print. Rawr <3




Classic Black and White Combo with a Twist.


     

More Classic Black and White with a Twist; then same style w. Pink and Black[: Clean, Sharp Color Combinations


     

Loving the Bottom Half of These Two Dresses


     

Cute and Simple, but Lovely (Short AND Long Versions)

"What are you fighting for?" by Gemineye (Def Jam Poetry)

I would stand to miss the fists on the battlefield
Among an army of red and an army of blue
And I stand tall and true
As I ask you
What are you fighting for?

This four foot by four foot concrete block
You're arguing for and bartering for
Is merely a prison without bars
That still manages to arrest you by
Confining your mind
And you allow this corner to define you
And now you're redefining yourself by calling yourself a street corner
Entrepreneur
And I ask you
What are you fighting for?

You see now you're standing on corners
I used to call my own corners
I once considered a safe zone
And now, I'm too afraid to let my mother walk to the store alone
Cuz these streets
They're covered with cowardly fake gangsters
And I'm angered at the nonsense
That rag on your head is somehow
Keeping knowledge from seeping into your brain
Don't you see you're dying for nothing
Rather than living for something
You're self-destructing and just f***ing your own self over
And I ask you
What are you fighting for?

You're waging wars over something that never was and never will be yours
Cuz owning the streets is just a fictitious concept
That gets misused by hip-hop dudes
Trying to pass themselves off as reincarnated gangsters
So, contrary to popular belief
no matter how deep your gang is or how much money
you'll think you'll make from crack rocks
The only concrete blocks you'll ever own
are the ones that come with steel bars
Or the ones we call tombstones
So I guess the only decision left for you to choose is whether
The fabric in your casket should be red or blue
And I ask you
What are you dying for?