I love sweets. I eat sweets a lot because they make me happy when the world is sad.
Oh, so sad.
happy anniversary.
today was our fourteenth month.
seems super long, doesn’t it?
I skipped my photography class (got in trouble for that one) and my chemistry study group (really really really need to make up that one) to surprise mack by getting there four hours earlier than planned.
After a comfortable nap on such a nice day, we headed to pacifica to eat at a yelp! restaurant we’ve been meaning to visit - toyose! It’s one of those not-really-well-known-but-should-be-tried places. The restaurant was definitely a treat. I mean, it’s a garage! Toyose is like a secret in hiding, and only those who have the privilege of finding it, get the good stuff.
It was hella good stuff.
After dinner, on my cravings, we went again to Japantown for Sophie’s Crepes. God, I fucking love Sophie! A quiet ride back home accompanied by a calm evening of reading and homework-doing until we dozed off in his warm bed.
Only 3 years and 8 months to go!
(generate your own tumblrcloud)
It’s really hard for me to not miss this lens.
Jae Hoon let me borrow a magnificent thing. Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L is the most amazing piece of equipment I’ve ever seen. Not to mention - all the looks I got because the lens was so fricking huge. It makes me sad too look at my bank account that has no chance of ever buying all the things I want in the world. But of course, I am on the saving and investing path of life now.
So here’s the bad news.
I freaking accidentally got up too fast and pineapple hit the car door. Of course, my lens broke. Although nothing major broke in my shitty 18-55mm EF lens, it still kind of sucks to not have auto focus anymore. I guess it was around eighty dollars, which is pretty cheap, but it’s still eighty dollars down the drain. On the bright side, I get to invest in the 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens I’ve been wanting. Well, to be honest, I wanted the 100mm f/2.8 L macro first, but my boyfriend convinced me it would be more “logical” to get a stock lens with a broader range.
As a science major, I guess I’m not really as logical as I should be…But it’s my personal opinion that passion and work ethic is more important than efficiency and practicality. I didn’t pick the wrong major, right? Anyways, I’m getting off track. I really need to start saving money for this thing. For everything. Sigh, money money money is what makes the world go round.
How sad, but true.
Choo Choo.
How I miss you so. Your soft, cuddly fur, your ever-tearing large, round eyes. Your ears of cloud fluff, your pinkish nose. I loved how you curled inside my stomach when we slept - it was our own unique spoon.
It is really strange how much dogs know, or feel for that matter. I remember Choo Choo always being there with her ears down when I began to cry. She would sit in my lap and look at me almost sadly as I stuffed my face into her stomach. There was this one night after watching Taegukgi that I held her for hours and she just licked my arm. I miss having her there. I miss having someone always home, waiting for me.
Choo Choo was really the only reason I ever felt like I had a home. She was excited when I came home and super happy every time I took her out on walks. As strange as it sounds, my dog was really my family. My brother and my parents were the pets. Choo Choo gave me real love.
I want my dog back. My adorable, super, super, awesome Chu. I need to step it up in school, so that I can deserve your love. School! Exercise! Food! Art! Photography!
My Chu!
she’s so cute, she deserved her own post.
I had my fourth photo shoot today. My model? Angela. She is my coworker at the financial aid office and is really one of the cutest girls I have met here. Not to mention, she is also very trendy - definitely a plus because her dress was definitely different.
What was awesome about my shoot? Well this adorable, cute girl came and asked me to let her be my model right when I was on the verge of tears looking for more diverse muses for my portfolio. She saw my portfolio of Brenna (thank you, brenna), and I got myself my filipino princess.
So here’s the problem: it was a little difficult shooting her. It wasn’t that she was un-photogenic or something. No, she was pretty. She was cute. She was just uptight, as strange as that sounds because she is really nothing like that. It took me twice as long on that shoot to get shots that I liked. It took me four times as many shots and ten times as many shoot sites. That shoot was also the first time I maxed out my SD card. After we took a dinner break to cheeseboard (which was ridiculously good) she loosened up a lot, and I got to know her. In the end, I got the shots I wanted. And I bonded with a coworker in the meantime.
That gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling.
Brenna, I may be in love with you.
Tomorrow is Wednesday lunch, and this adorable routine we have picked up this year is really making me feel more and more at home. I guess it’s really the people that make you want to try harder. The people that make you want to stay in this godforsaken brothel of ridiculous midterms.
I took a couple of high school seniors around school today. I have to say, it was freaking weird. I surprised myself when I pushed for them to attend Cal. They always ask for people that love their school to become the obnoxious, overly-enthusiastic CalSo counselors. I felt like one of those counselors. Does that mean I love my school? Or is it because I love the people in it?
High School and college are supposed to be about finding yourself. For someone like me, who has always known and planned for everything I wanted to do, I’m really starting to question myself. What is it I really want? What makes me happy?
My recent photo shoots and doodles have been egging me to throw away my parent’s pride and apply for art school. To drop out of the best public university in the nation for a useless major. A useless, but passionate major.
Buddah. Damn it, stop making me love the art of photography.
I hung out with brenna today.
I cannot get over how much I like her.
She gets along so well with me and kai :)
I’m finally learning how to do HDR shots.
High. Dynamic. Range.
And they are fucking hard without a tripod. Good thing in a week I will get my second fatty paycheck. I need to buy so much shit for my pineapple. I don’t even have a case yet. This hobby is ridiculously expensive.
I’m a little disappointed in myself though. I haven’t been using traditional mediums as much - despite regarding them so highly. I suppose photography is somewhat of an art, but my heart will always lie with my pencils and paints. Taking photographs is surprisingly harder than I had originally thought, but when I think of using my own hands to create something beautiful, I can’t help but look down on relying on your equipment to do it for you. In the end, I still express more about myself and my thoughts through my traditional art.
That’s not to say I don’t like photography. No, I freaking love it. Instead of spending months to finish a masterpiece, I could pop one out in a day or less (considering I put in all the right parameters for pineapple). The only thing that bugs me is that so many people have DSLRs now, so they would most likely have the same subject or even photograph as you had taken a week before.
Then again, nothing is original anymore.
I like to think I am creative. I like to think I am an artist. I really love having that title, but in reality, I need to step it up to gain any recognition for it. Illustrate a book. Graffiti a mural. Tattoo my friends. My goals with art are limitless, and I have yet to achieve anything I can be proud of.
I complain sometimes about how I am different from my friends. How I am strange and queer. How nobody will ever be able to understand me. But, truthfully, I like having that uniqueness. Although it is troublesome at times, I like my odd, quirkiness and rebellious, radical nature. It is probably the reason I have creativity at all. You can’t create a masterpiece if you just mimic what everyone else wants to see. You can’t make anyone feel anything without going against all the rules.
I think I can save the world while living the life of an artist.
By the way, this isn’t even an HDR shot.
John Mayer was bomb.
This is really old post, but I never gave it enough justice. So although late, I added a couple of paragraphs.
I really regret not sneaking my camera into the concert, these iPhone snapshots really don’t do it justice. I would have loved to have gotten close-up shots of his crazy-weird singing face with the 70-200mm Canon L lens I was borrowing at the time. With a 2.8 f-stop at that range, could you imagine the quality?!
It had been a long relaxing day leading up to this perfect concert to end the night. After a delicious gorilla barbeque meal by the beach, Mack and me tanned in his backyard and fell asleep. That was quite the experience. I drove and picked up my loveable floormate (and future roomate) and her boyfriend from her house and together we headed to San Jose for a quick sushi dinner. The HP Pavilion was fucking huge! But I could see why, because the whole place was packed for John Mayer.
I knew half of the newer songs and like usual, Mack knew the half I didn’t know. Although we didn’t get to sit with Cheska and Jeremy, it was a fun ride home. I got a lot of group ride back pictures in cucumber (my laptop) that still make me smile.
John Mayer is a weirdo.
But he sings and plays guitar like a God.
Cece Chu
KUNWOO!
It’s just cause I love playing with you.
You’re always on the winning team!
Today I met someone you probably know, Tom Boo(b). He said he went to your church and knew Myung. He played guitar for us and sang, he was really good. Let’s all play frizbee sometime, and have them sing our fight songs.
I like you, kunwoo.
You DID text me you LOVED me <3
I see you have found me on tumblr~
We shall play frisbee sometime. I know, I know I didn’t play last time..
Fuck Berkeley.
No I’m just kidding. I don’t hate it here, but I’m not completely in love with it yet. Then again, I’m an extreme optimist and force things to have a silver lining, even if the entire cloud is pitch black. I’ll fucking make a silver lining up.
Despite everything I did throughout my life, I never thought I was busy. I joined three clubs, the red cross yes! team, volunteered regularly at the hospital, juggled two varsity sports for four years, became the mother for my family, and took on every AP class I could fit into my schedule since Sophomore year. I ran alone and took on my team’s responsibilities. My mother left me with my family’s mess to clean up. My sketchbook lay on my desk, dejected and dusty.
To be entirely honest, I did end up feeling overwhelmed Senior year, because I was letting my grades drop and I just didn’t want to work anymore. I was stressing because my GPA fell below the 3.0 unweighted mark. Then I started to feel like I had too much going on for me. I felt like that was the busiest I could possibly be.
Who was I kidding?
That is a joke. Everything I have done up until now is nothing. Organic chemistry after a crammed semester of AP Chemistry? My dorm units government. An internship with a senator. Photography portfolio. Business lessons. My retarded school requires five times the studying for every half hour of class.Study groups. Review sessions. Office hours. Tutoring. For the first time in my life, I spend more time studying and stressing than I do on the track. My tuition practically forces me to work twenty hours a week on top of my “you’re not a fucking doctor” weeder classes.
And running? I have to live with the fact that I’m not only not the best on the team, I can’t even make it. I have to settle for a sport that depends on me to drive to Irvine and back without sleep. I went from driving thirty minute rides to seven hour hells. And yet, stubborn as I am, I still run on that relentless track, the one that won’t let me reclaim my glory. And as everything eats away my time, it’s taking all that I have not to complain. Not to break down. Not to cry. Not to fail.
Where is my silver lining?
I used to think I was busy.
Who the fuck was I kidding?
My parents weren’t really ever there to raise me.
So I guess I turned out a little strange. I only learned half my manners and a fraction of etiquette, but somehow, I like that better.
I’m not extremely fake to parents and although I ended up lacking a professional side, I’m honest.
I don’t pretend to be nice when I’m not.
I don’t pretend I like you when I don’t.
I don’t act like I’m anything else but the goofball I am.
However silly and immature that may be, if you can accept my nature - I won’t ever be anything else.
And I don’t expect you to be anything else either.
Definitely for the win.
They are so fucking cute. Yay, for hot couples! Anyways, here’s my blurb for the day. I am a little more insecure than I make myself out to be. I think I see myself cuter than I really am. That’s really a problem, isn’t it? I always thought I was okay not learning how to put make-up on or going to a formal dance with just eyeliner would make me beautiful. Wrong. Apparently, even with make-up I still have a ways to go before I could be pageant worthy or something.
I want to always be called cute. I want to always be called pretty. I want to always be beautiful. And not only when I’m trying, but all the time.
I feel like I fall so short to so many people because I’m not as physically attractive. Shit like that really blows my self-esteem to fucking bits. And I usually have a lot of self-esteem, for it to fall so low I really must not be as cute as I think I am. This retarded insecurity of mine is really starting to screw with my head, but then again it might be all the hormones I take.
I’ve become such a girl that I’m starting to annoy myself. I am not really insecure and I usually don’t give a shit about a lot of things. But things I bypassed before are starting to bother the fuck out of me. Ex-grilfriends. Pretty girls. Gamers. Nerds.
Geez, when did I start going through puberty?
OMGOMGOMG!!!
SERENATE/NERENA FTW! :) :) :) :D :D :D
Hey, boyfriend.
I’ll be okay even if you’re not holding my hand through all my issues.
In the end, I’m still the one that is the most independent.
I know what I want, I don’t need help.
So why do I feel like I can’t go forward?
Like I’m naked and bare.
I’m alone when I walk this road.
Screw walking one step at a time.
I’m fucking running this shit.
“I’m proud of myself too.”
apple.
I met someone today who worked for apple. As an engineering technician, he was incredibly well off for a twenty-fve year old. I hope I will be that bomb ass in the future.
Actually, I know I will be. I’m not planning on just getting some measly office job though, I want to start my own business, my own movement.
So back off of my way or you’re fired!
staples.
mack:ugh fuck.. no stapler in my house wtf???
cece:loll!! i have onee ):
mack:omg so gheto
mack:found an old staple and manually took it off and put it on my paper
we still have fun in the wee hours of the morning. ;)
youth.
will:lemme see your school id
cece:yeah, it doesn't look like me..
will:you look thirteen
cece:well I look older now
will:hmm..
cece:right?
will:yeah, you look fourteen.
Sigh.
“It’s supposed to be some give, some take. You only ever take.”