oh the weather outside is frightful

Of course it rains nonstop for all of Christmas, and then snows nonstop for the following three days.

Just like how, now that I'm about to leave, there are a million people I need to see and a million and one things I need to do. I guess it's the cycle of life or something.

happy christmas

the promise of every cobbled alley

wanderlust, wanderlust

can you spot a pattern?

relentlessly restless

restless relentlessly

my life is average

No matter how many times I hear this song, the lyrics are still amazing.

white castles made of snow

just because i'm losing

doesn't mean i'm lost

doesn't mean i'll stop

doesn't mean i'm in a cross

just because i'm hurting

doesn't mean i'm hurt

doesn't mean i didn't get what i deserve

no better and no worse

i just got lost

every river that i've tried to cross

and every door i ever tried was locked

oh, and i'm just waiting till the shine wears off.

pants are overrated

[Photo credit: Vogue US, September 2009]

Latest winter obsession: over-the-knee boots.

I bought a pair yesterday in black suede.

And the best part (besides them being ridiculously warm and allowing you to wear high hemlines in the winter) is that the top part (normally) folds down so that they become below-the-knee cuffed boots too.

laughter is an ab workout

"Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day."

- the inside of my diet Snapple bottle cap

I'm pretty sure the only thing getting me through reading period right now is fratmusic.com.

white flight

Dear Sarah Palin,

You scare me too.

Sincerely,
an ABC

creating sensation

"When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships."

- Andy Warhol

Frozen yogurt, headbands, and "spotted" texts -- is fine art the next trend to spread from Gossip Girl?

cost-benefit analysis

"I don't want to have a job where I wake up every Monday and wish it were already Friday. Why would I want to wish that my life were a week shorter?"

- Stephanie Tepperberg

Now that the economy sucks, I figure that since it's harder to get that highly competitive, high-paying job, the opportunity cost of me doing something that I love is now lower. (This line of reasoning brought to you by my minor in economics aka The Bain of My Academic Career.)

I'm so excited for my fashion marketing internship next semester (with Eva Danielle), especially because it feels like the pieces are all starting to kind of fit together. (Thomas Edison's quote, "I didn't fail; I found 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb," has definitely been ringing in my head the last few weeks.)

All I need to do now is make it through the next two weeks (aka Hell) and then it's winter break, Christmas, New Year's in NYC, Marco Island's Florida sunshine, and a second semester senior schedule consisting entirely of dance, film, fashion, and music.

It's all so close and yet so, so far.

in anticipation of annual awkward family time

"It's not until you're older that you understand why everyone drinks at family reunions."

- Jackie Puig, the wise Cuban

personal branding

"Women tear each other apart. ... The problem is, if they think you're attractive, you're either stupid or a whore or a dumb whore. The instinct among girls is to attack the jugular."

- "The Self-Manufacture of Megan Fox" (The Times Magazine)

tick tock, on the clock

Halloween: Rockstars. Angels. Ninja Turtles. Royalty.

And an extra hour thanks to Daylight Savings.

texts from last night

But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. A coat of ironic detachment is required for anyone who hopes to withstand the brutal feedback of the marketplace. In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner.

- "Cellphones, Texts and Lovers" (NYTimes)

pseudo-intellectualism in a post-racial society

"I would rather have someone go through my medicine cabinet than my bookshelf. You can go to rehab for your Vicodin problem. You can't go to rehab for liking Dan Brown."

- Christian Lander, "Stuff White People Like" @ Duke

flat second, major third, perfect fourth

Do you really love listening to the latest Jack White project? Do you really hate the sound of Britney Spears? Or are your music-consumption habits, in fact, not merely guided but partly shaped by the cultural information that Pandora largely screens out — like what’s considered awesome (or insufferable) by your peers, or by music tastemakers, or by anybody else? Is it really possible to separate musical taste from such social factors, online or off, and make it purely about the raw stuff of the music itself?

- "The Song Decoders" (NYTimes)

I think my Pandora is trying to tell me that I was a British and/or Scandinavian dude in a past life.

it's nothing but time and a face that you lose

Fall break: old friends, guilty pleasures, and crazy cats.

School always starts again too soon.

forever tailgate

i don't want to be 21 going on 45

After going to the career fair, I've realized: Why the hell am I in such a hurry to grow up? Why is everyone in such a rush to become their parents?

I don't want to be prematurely old.

which one of these is not like the other

Photo 7 in the slideshow for "Crimson and Green" (NYTimes) on Harvard's new clothing line.

i need to minimize my life

This weekend, instead of it fully hitting me that I was moving into my dorm room on Thursday, I went to Chicago to celebrate my 21st birthday (again) with the girls. The apartment we were staying at was just a 2 minute walk to the Viagra Triangle and about a 10 minute walk to Michigan Ave. Danielle, Carrie, and Joy had made a necklace/sash of notecards listing the 21 tasks I had to complete Friday night, and on top of that, Danielle had bought a gaudy, Disney princess tiara that they demanded I wear with my red dress. You can use your imagination to fill in the rest of the night.

The downside to the trip, though, was our 8 am bus ride Sunday morning (so brutal), which meant that I basically did nothing Sunday except go see "The Time Traveler's Wife" (kind of on par with "A Walk To Remember" in my opinion). Monday, I finally got my ass semi in-gear and went on a Target run, but today, I spent the afternoon in serious denial of vacation being over and, instead of desperately organizing my life, headed to the mall with Danielle to hit up Sephora and Aveda for "back-to-school" (easily the most dangerous excuse) shopping. Who knew Aveda has complementary neck and shoulder massages?

Fast forward to now (less than 12 hours away from when I have to start my 12 hour drive south), and I'm frantically throwing everything in sight into boxes (that will probably break my back in approximately 24 hours), while simultaneously chugging this strange Vitamin C, raspberry-flavored, energy boost drink that's Mom's latest health obsession and absolutely freaking out inside that I'm forgetting something because I can't remember where the hell I put everything. Even worse, I can't even remember what the hell I have. Or what the hell I'll need.

Where did the summer go?!

cut copy

“Back in the 1960s, the only important thing was length,” said Michael McDonald, the costume (and hair) designer for the “Hair” Broadway revival. “It wasn’t until the 1970s, and the disco era, that men’s hair started to really have ‘style.’ And then every moment had its look, so that now, in the 21st century, we’ve pretty much seen everything wacky you can do to your hair. It’s all there to go back to and interpret.”

Mr. McDonald can generally spot the inspirations. “There’s a little bit of everything,” he said. “Maybe it’s a little Flock of Seagulls, maybe a little Backstreet Boys.” But there the trail goes dead. If the hair is goth, the clothes might be skater-cum-prep, and the shoes rockabilly. “It’s all mixed up so beautifully,” he said. “It’s really neat the way they can just cut and paste.”

- "Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair" (NYTimes)

Five points if you can spot the Duke reference.

undetaggables

In an era, when a stray gripe about your boss can land you on an industry blog, when waking up hung over can frantically send you to Facebook to untag your name from photos of the previous night’s frosting-wrestling contest, when shots of you in unflattering jeans become part of your permanent Google search results, there are signs that some are tired of living their lives on the Web.

- "Party On, but No Tweets" (NYTimes)

na zdraví

I'm 21!

devil with the blue dress

Harvard is starting its own fashion line with Wearwolf Group, to be called Harvard Yard, to save itself from financial ruin. The line will target "fans of the university" and draw inspiration from the "Harvard prep lifestyle," according to Fashionista.

...Seriously? It just sounds like a more pretentious J. Crew.

But it did get me thinking: if Duke were to make a fashion line, what would it look like?

Free T-shirts and sweatpants?

Lily Pulitzer and pearls?

Plaid and knock-off Ray-Bans?

Or maybe it'd just be a costume shop.

I can't wait for senior year Tailgate.

pause to appreciate the irony of pc's name

Also:

Left: Ali Lohan, Lindsay's little sister

Right: Kelli Tomashoff, from NYC Prep

Just saying. I can't be the only person that sees it.

let them eat cake

Dark Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes

Ingredients:

• 5 - 6 ounces dark chocolate
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• Optional: Whipped or ice cream

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease four 4-ounce custard cups. In double boiler, melt chocolate and butter. Stir in sugar. In a small bowl, lighly beat eggs. Add some chocolate mixture to eggs to temper eggs. Carefully, stir egg mixture into chocolate mixture. Add flour and combine completely. Add batter to custard cups. Place on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Centers should be soft but sides should be done. Invert cups on individual serving plates. Remove cups after 2 minutes. Serve warm with whipped or ice cream.

And for those of you who don't feel like cooking, in honor of Obama turning 48, DC has lots of free food to celebrate:

Domino's Pizza will be giving away its new chocolate lava crunch cake from 11-9, or while supplies last. All we had to do to get one was sign a birthday card. The cakes are intensely sweet but overall surprisingly decent. The outer cake "shell" is almost entirely powdered sugar, but the crunch provides a nice contrast to the gooey middle. It'd be perfect with ice cream or a tall glass of milk (and maybe more than a few pretzels, since the sugar gets a little overwhelming after a while).

Meanwhile, Z-burger is giving away coupons for 48 free burgers and 48 free milkshakes to their first 48 customers. Additionally, there will be free burgers and birthday cake from 11-2 and a reveiling of the new "Obama burger."

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

trigger happy

Cameras replaced sketching by the last century; convenience trumped engagement, the viewfinder afforded emotional distance and many people no longer felt the same urgency to look. It became possible to imagine that because a reproduction of an image was safely squirreled away in a camera or cell phone, or because it was eternally available on the Web, dawdling before an original was a waste of time, especially with so much ground to cover.

- "At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay Close to Focus" (NYTimes)

My biggest pet peeve: loud tour groups that crowd museums. That, and people who stand on the left on escalators. Don't even get me started.

The great thing about living in DC is that I don't feel the pressure to go through a (free!) Smithsonian in one visit. Realistically, based on my museum-going habits, I know that I will probably never actually make it back for a second visit or spend more than two hours in one museum at a time, but it's a nice thing to tell myself.

Whenever I bring my camera somewhere, though, I'm always torn between wanting to "capture" a moment, that I'll be able to look back on forever, or "experience" a moment, that I'll hopefully be able to remember forever. To me, art is about emotions and photos about feelings; they serve to frame both a moment and a mindset. But so often I find myself becoming guilty of simply being trigger happy, of living life behind the lens rather than in front of it, of collecting frames rather than experiencing moments, and of taking photos whose only purpose is to prove that "I was there."

Even if I wasn't really "there."

sugar and spice and everything nice

For those of you in the DC area: Tangysweet (which tastes exactly like Pinkberry) is now opening up another Red Velvet Cupcakery at their Dupont location, and they're giving out free cupcakes today starting at noon.

For those of you who drink Bud Light: apparently, so does Obama.

And in honor of it being exactly one week (7 days! 168 hours! 10080 minutes!) until my 21st birthday: here are 17 of the worst shots ever created. Scroll down to see my personal favorite from this summer: the Four Horsemen (Jim, Jack, Johnny, and Jose).

an american in paris

Yesterday I went to a free sneak preview showing of Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, which will be released Aug. 7. Based on the true life stories of Julia Child (Meryl Streep), the beloved cook (and spy?!) who wrote the 734-page book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation employee turned blogger turned writer, the film weaves together Child's memoir My Life in France with the creation and carry-through of the Julie/Julia Project.

It's no secret that the real star of the movie is the food (even The New York Times wrote about it in its article "Film Food, Ready for Its 'Bon Appetit'"), but Streep is pretty flawless herself as the eccentric, larger-than-life, and lovable chef. Both her and Adams, who sports an androgynous haircut in place of her normal red waves, pass the hardest test of playing a real person: believability, although both women do seem to have unnaturally perfect marriages and Adams appears to have an unnaturally fast metabolism given all the butter she claims to use. While the film drags on a bit towards the end, making it seem longer than the 123 minutes it actually is, for the most part the plot is engaging, the writing entertaining, and the comedic timing on point (but what else would you expect from the director of When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail?).

The only downside: a strong craving for rich French food immediately following viewing.

three gray walls and a dell

"I don't think a pre-born child is yearning for anything. Douche."

- our lobbyist

I love the people I work with, but most of the time I feel like the cubicle is sucking my soul out. I'm dying to be outside, moving, exploring, but instead I'm stuck in a 6 by 6 cell, without even a window to longingly look out of.

why journalism will never die

only two more weeks left in dc

I feel like I move every three months.

And it always takes about half that time for a place to really start feeling like home to me.

google yourself when you get home

The indie world can't live on fingerpicking and textural guitars alone, and a varity of sounds and multiculturalism in indie rock isn't the enemy here; shitty Jackson 5 covers are.

- "LP" album review (Pitchfork Media; rated 6.8)

Cat introduced me to Discovery, the spin-off project of Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij (keyboardist/producer) and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles (singer), who released their "LP" album (yes, that's the title) this summer. Imagine the beat dynamics of both bands combined and then projected through a flurry of synths and waves of electro-pop sound, with a dose of MJ and a remix of Ra Ra Riot's "Can You Tell" thrown in for good measure.

Or, since Pitchfork calls it "your electro-pop summer soundtrack," maybe you could just think of it as the musical equivalent of drinking a lemon fizz while whirling down a pool slide.

Yes, please.

and in that moment, i swear we were infinite

They carried wine from Trader Joe’s, blankets, almonds and goldfish (the Pepperidge Farm kind), and they were headed to the Great Lawn in search of a patch of grass. It was 6:15 on Tuesday evening, a breezy, golden 77 degrees, and people were streaming into the park with plastic bags of picnic food, like pilgrims bearing offerings, for one of the city’s great summer rites: At 8 p.m., on the grassy oval ringed by oaks, skyscrapers and the almost-too-cute turrets of Belvedere Castle, the New York Philharmonic would start to play. Free.

- "In Central Park, Nearing Consensus on Perfection" (NYTimes)

Picnics in the park; dancing after dark -- this is what summer will always mean to me.

fast-talking and twitchy

Arjun: i didn't know you were a youtube celebrity
Me: what?!

overheard at lunch

"There are parts of your body that your friends should never have to see. The inside of your uterus is one of them." - our lobbyist

i've never had an asian roommate

A study of students at Duke University, using lists of their close friends before college and at the end of freshman year, found that white students, the least likely to have had close friends of a different race, were the most likely to develop more diverse friendships as freshmen — while black students, who came in with more interracial friendships, had a decline in cross-race friendship freshman year. The study found little change freshman year in the diversity of Asian and Hispanic students’ friendships.

Freshmen with roommates of a different race — or those who lived alone in a dorm — were the most likely to diversify their friendships.

“Just having diversity in classrooms doesn’t do anything to increase interracial friendships,” said Claudia Buchmann, an associate professor of sociology at Ohio State and an author of the Duke study. “But the intimacy of living together in residence halls, with no roommate, or a different-race roommate, does lead to more interracial friendships.”

- "Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice" (NYTimes)

seasons of love

Yesterday I attended a free preview screening of 500 Days of Summer, which will be released in theaters July 17. Directed by Marc Webb, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the guy who wasn't Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You) opposite Zooey Deschanel (the perennial "quirky girl" and one-half of the band She & Him). With the tagline "Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't," which sums up the plot of the movie surprisingly accurately, this romantic dramedy is the anti-love story (or a "realistic and modern" love story, depending on which way you want to look at it), whose endearing characters are perfectly packaged in clever filming, flawless comedic timing, and witty script writing. Plus, Gordon-Levitt spends pretty much the entire movie in either skinny ties and cardigans or skinny jeans and band T-shirts. So my heart was pretty much won over from the start.

meet me at chapeau

This video makes me miss Praha (both the city and the idea of the city) every single time.

i guess the hair adds a couple inches

Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson are surprisingly short.

one in three

Tayo: a PA is basically the same as a gopher right?
me: no i'm sort of like the gopher's bitch

I'm working tomorrow on the new James L. Brooks movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson, and Paul Rudd.

I am so excited.

Even crazier though is that I met the guy who called me about it in the hospital waiting room. It's a lot less sketchy than it sounds, I promise. And no, he was not the one being checked out.

that's what you get for waking up in vegas

On Saturday, my friends and I went to see "The Hangover" while hungover, which albeit was a cliche move on our part but it definitely did not detract at all from the experience. The movie was easily one of the funniest films I've seen in a long time, a blend of comedy and mystery, tigers and babies.

But the real question remains: was the perfectly timed release of Katy Perry's latest single "Waking Up in Vegas" planned to coincide with the film's Box Office takeover, or was it all just cosmic luck?

you thought you were glowing

An office favorite:

please be punctual

"Excuse me. I know this is random," he said, "but I've been standing here at the metro stop waiting for my friend, and I saw you and said to myself, 'If you don't go and talk to that girl over there, you're going to be kicking yourself later.' You have this grace about you. Do you do yoga or meditate?"

I said no to both.

He was a med student from New Jersey interning in eye surgery and next told me I looked like his ex-girlfriend, some girl from Australia who was skinny and tall and worked in the fashion industry. He kept touching my elbow, but seemed relatively harmless, though a little awkward. He wasn't unattractive, but I wasn't attracted to him either.

He asked if we could grab coffee, but I declined and said I was waiting for my friend for dinner (which was true).

Then shit got weird.

The random touching of my elbow, which seemed a little forced to begin with, led to him touching my hair, saying it was "cool." Next thing I knew:

"I have this really big urge to kiss you right now," is what he's saying to me. "It's spontaneous, a little taboo in broad daylight...."

Mentally I cursed my friend for, of all days, being late that day.

mission accomplished

YESTERDAY I SAW OBAMA!
At the wreath laying ceremony in Arlington.

older but not wiser

I saw my Grandpa today for the first time since... I don't even really remember. Eighth grade, I think.

He's been living in the same town as me since I was in elementary school and he has, since I last saw him, already become an American citizen, a fact that I didn't learn about until I came home this summer. Apparently, a little while back (when he was about 80), he also decided to take classes at a local college and has since graduated, which means that his entire life he's done nothing but either go to school or teach at a school. And play chess.

Communicating with him was interesting since he prefers to speak Mandarin or Shanghainese to me and I only speak English back to him. Mom sort of served as a translator, but more or less, we understood each other.

Weirder though was summarizing my entire childhood, high school experience, and current college and career aspirations in what was about a 20 minute visit (though granted, about 15 minutes of that was devoted to discussing currency exchange rates between Hong Kong, China, and the US), having to tell him that I actually no longer go by my middle name anymore, and hearing about my half-uncle.

cotton spandex jersey bodysuit

Fashion victim confession: last summer I bought a bodysuit (in the color "raspberry") from American Apparel.

PROS:
1) versatility (can be worn as a bodysuit, a halter top, or high-waisted shorts, depending on how you choose to tie and layer it) makes it great for Tailgate, themed parties, shows, and general going outage
2) great color

CONS:
1) everything will be shown
2) it makes going to the bathroom way more complicated

one degree down, two more to go

"Blair, you will never be more beautiful or thin or happy than you are right now. I want you to make the most of it."

- Eleanor Waldorf (Gossip Girl)

Finals week makes me feel like I'm wasting away my youth being in the library, getting fat from anxiously munching away on processed foods and going crazy from a combination of overcaffeination, deliriousness, and pure panic.

Summer cannot come fast enough.

where i'll be this summer

36 hours in Washington D.C.

cut copy at cat's cradle

Sore legs. Broken purse. Glitter.

Incredible show.

the ting tings at cat's cradle

boston: the college town of college towns

new york city: spring break minus the spring

northern bohemia: i miss traveling

three hundred and sixty

I'm back at Duke.

My room is in the center of campus, overlooking the bus stop and Alpine Bagels, it has two closets and a ridiculous amount of floor space, and my roommate (from freshman year) is tenting.

Sorority recruitment is over, we have an entirely new freshman class of baby Phis, and I no longer have to spend 8+ hours clattering about in heels, with a permanent smile plastered on my face, and make conversation with girl after girl despite subsisting on only coffee and Lifesaver mints. Strangely though, I enjoy recruitment in a way because it forces us all to be in one room--and the fact that I leave recruitment loving the girls in my sorority instead of hating them really says something.

Classes are in full swing, there is a new floor in the library called the Link that is essentially the love child of Ikea and Apple, and it could not have come at a better time because my new moleskin planner is being rapidly filled up with readings, papers, and application deadlines.