deja vu: like the first day of digital photo 1

Working on my 365 shot for the day...decided to take a decent shot and play around for an extended amount of time in the good ol' shoppe of photo instead of just picking the quickest shot to minimally edit. Actually had a bit of fun doing this and thinking about how stoked Sablow would be if this was for an assignment. And then I'd have to admit I didn't shoot in RAW and the whole class would then be lectured on how important of a detail that is and then...oh, right, I'm not in that class anymore so it doesn't matter. (No offense to Sablow ever though! He taught me way more than anyone ever has about photo!) A N Y W A Y. Here's the photo with it's before. Some things that I did: Took out that hideous antenna, lightened up the clouds, played with tones and colors, burned and dodged some things, and that's about it.  Mom thinks I did a great job, so that's really all that matters. :)

The Big Apple

I'm really, really awful at coming up with titles. But this post should be quite entertaining besides my cliché title.


From the 26th - 27th Mom, Vik, and I went to New York City for the second time. Of course the weekend we're there hurricane Irene decides to come along for the visit too. Did she touch Florida? Of course not. So this led to a mostly uneventful city that never sleeps because, well, everyone decided to close shop and go home and (probably) sleep. I swear, every time I go to NYC something has to go wrong. Last time, I didn't have my main lens. Not a huge issue, but it bothered me and made me have less fun the entire time we were there. This time everything was closed. Hopefully November's trip can go through without a hitch. Hopefully.

So we left left Jax at 7:30am and arrived in DC sometime around 9, or maybe it was 10, I don't really remember. Vik's flight to NY was leaving just as we got there, so she hopped on the plane and mom and I had our hour layover. After some horrible coffee and a decent bagel we got on our plane and landed at LaGuardia around noon. A long bus and train ride later we made it to Hotel Edison, which I've concluded is run by the mafia. After changing out of our gross travel clothes we ate at the overpriced TGIFriday's in Times Square and did a little wandering. This led us to find the Al Herschfeld Theatre, which really was no coincidence because I had every intention of going there in the first place. After some drama (and ok, maybe some tears) I ended up with a (very expensive) ticket to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Needless to say I was the happiest girl ever that night. 

mr. radcliffe's back ;)

The show was absolutely fastastic, and I could really ramble about it's goodness for an obnoxious amount of time, but I digress. I hope more than anything to be able to see it again before the year is up and Daniel Radcliffe is no longer the lead. 


So day two included Ray's pizza (+ garlic knots!) and Vik's move-in and some rain. Basically we moved her in, walked down 3rd Ave to find out every grocery store was closed, made it to union sqaure, had some Dunkin Donuts, and caught a cab back to the hotel. Dinner for the night was mission impossible, but we ended up finding a deli (ok, we didn't have to look too hard, it was next to the hotel) and had burgers and chips. We watched some movies, complained about how we couldn't see Doctor Who, and called it a night. 

Sunday included waking up to the hurricane that did nothing to Manhattan except make everything close and people scared of nothing. Seriously, it was just a bunch of over-dramatics and a waste of time and money. Anyway. We walked down to 5th Ave. to see if H&M was open...of course it wasn't. So we touristed it up for a bit, wandering in St. Patrick's cathedral, and then walking all the way up 5th. After a quick trip into Trump Tower (one of the many) we made it to Central Park and then walked down 50something back to 7th and walked back towards Times Square. After another trip to Ray's we went back to the hotel and watched more movies. Mom and I realized at some point that in the two trips to NYC we'd never had NYC Cheesecake, so we went to Roxy's and got a slice. It was $10 and quite tasty. We packed up and said goodnight to day three.

Monday was sunny and happy and sad and the day everything changed in our lives. We caught a cab to SVA and bought Vik a few things from the corner store and then said our goodbyes. Mom cried. I told Vik to always tell someone where she was so that she wouldn't get caught between two buildings and have to cut her arm off à la 127 Hours. Mom and I then caught another cab to LaGuardia, had a McD's breakfast, and then were off. Another layover in DC, some chips and queso, and then we were back in the sunshine state. We had to wait about 40 minutes for Kristen to get off work and then pick us up, so we had a Cinnabon in the meantime. Dinner was at Applebee's and once home Kristen and I proceeded to color our hair. (I colored my blonde bits the same red as her whole head.) I don't remember if we did anything else, but I know I slept so good that night. And that was my trip to New York City, version 2.0.

(film shots coming once i get them developed!)

Because

Because it's been way too long.

I had every intention of doing what my last entry on here said, but obviously that didn't work out. I have stuck with Project 365 though, so at least not everything I said was a lie.

It's just getting to that point where I want to have a place to write. Just for me. This is a public blog, but I know that no one really checks blogger anymore (no one meaning friends of mine) so it's sort of like a private place for me anyway. I almost made a private tumblr for this reason, but then the thought of officially abandoning this page made me so sad. I know there's a lot of old stuff on here. Stuff I'd love to ignore and forget altogether. But at the same time, doesn't it all just flow together? Without that past I wouldn't be here, in this exact moment, with these exact feelings, right? Right. Even if it's not right, I'm going to say it is to help my case. But again, what does it matter if this is just for me anyway?

I can't say how often I'll post on here, but I will. For myself. I miss writing like this more than I'd ever like to admit, but I just do. I guess I should blame Xanga in 2004 for making me such a blog-keeping fangirl. (But really I should be thankful about that.)

-s

to prevent laziness

So I'm doing project 365 again...in combination with project 52. I'll take a picture every day (Mon-Sat) of whatever, I'm thinking mostly nature/negative space type things. I'll try to practice more with new techniques and whatnot. Then on Sundays it'll be a self portrait. This will be a test of lightening and remote use. I really want to stick to this because the farthest I've ever gotten is around March. This year has a whole lot in store for me, and even more if I let myself live. Not that I haven't "lived" in the past, but in the sense that I want to go new places and do new things and just live. I'm hoping that in 363 days I can say this year was beyond what I expected in the most amazing ways. 2010 was great. I think I became more optimistic than ever and just gained a better outlook on life. I want to take what 2010 gave me and run with it in 2011.

And with that, here is my first Sunday picture. Yes, it's about 4am on Monday, but I'm giving myself some leeway to get used to my projects. But, yes, I will try to get this up on actual Sunday nights from now on.

Coming Back

I can't help bit feeling that need to come back to this; come back to my safe place.

As much as I love having a tumblr/twitter/facebook/etc., nothing can ever compare to having a blog. And although I've had a "blog" for the time I haven't been on here, it just was never the same. I can't write on time. It doesn't give me the vibe to type more than a sentence. It's flickr and livejournal's lovechild, and it just cannot be the home of my writing. And no, my writing is not something to brag about, nor do I want it to be, but for me it's exactly what I need. I've been blogging since I was 14, and it's just something that has come easy for me. And not being about to write for over a year now has been miserable. I don't know why I thought I could leave you dearest blogspot!

It's sort of nice knowing that no one will read this. Or, if a person or two does read this...well, it's better than having a large audience.

Alas, I am back and (more than likely) here to stay. Maybe someone will read this, maybe not. What I do know is that I'm glad to be back.

23 hours left of being 20...

RIP

blogger.
you've been more than good to me. you were my sanity for 2+ years. but as all good things in life, they one day die.
today i move forward to tumblr.

no hard feelings, promise.
love.

fact:

blogger and tumblr hate each other. import already, please?

I don't keep friends, I keep aquainted

Could any other lyric be more true? Wow.

So far this week has been pretty good. I haven't been as productive as I'd like to be but that can be easily improved with a better sleep routine. I've been staying up way too late, then I take my mom to work, and then I sleep til noon. Not the ideal way I'd like to spend my days, but it is quite easy. I really need to clean up space on my computer. Deleting music I don't listen to anymore/ever has been going on, slowly, but it's happening. Next I have to go through pictures. That will take forever which is most of the reason I keep putting it on the back burner. I also need to organzie my room a little better, read read read, watch the final season of ER, and do some art stuff. Realizing how much I have to actually makes me feel like such a bum. Maybe I should stop sitting here writing all this and go do stuff...

Let me see the way you work it

Currently Listening: Surgarcult - Do It Alone

This past weekend was way better than planned. Mostly because originally I had no plans. Exciting life I lead, I know. I saw The Sleeping (along with Luna Halo and Sugarcult) at Embry Riddle in Daytona. If you don't know, ER is a weird school. People major in like...rocket science there. Weird. Anywho, I went with Morgan, Rachelle, and her sister. The crowd sucked, but The Sleeping were really great. I hadn't seen them since around January 07', and their live show has only gotten better. A lot of people were saying they were boring, but I don't get how a band with so much energy can be seen as boring. Wake up people. I'm mostly glad I went because I got to hang out with a whole new group of people and it was so much fun. I normally hang out with people younger than me (no offense you guys, it's just the truth) so actually being one of the younger ones in the group was a totally different experience. It's also nice to hang out with people who don't care about any of the bands I like. I love not worrying about drama, this person and that person's business, and dumb stuff like that. When I was 16 it was fun, but I'm almsot 20 years old and that stuff has just gotten old. I liked talking about comics, families, and how stupid ER was. Afterwards we went to Denny's and I wanted to get nachos but I can't get those unless Amber is with me. Getting mozzerella sticks alone was weird too though.


Here's a picture of Doug. I need to get back into Flickr. If only someone would give me what they owe me...

Memories of being young

Not that I'm old, but I guess music-wise I am. That sounds really stupid, and really isn't true I suppose, but from listening to these guys in 1998 to still listening to them and about 1,000 other artists today, I've grown up quite a bit. And the fast that GC turned 13 on Wednesday is kind of insane. I love that I still love all of these artists to this very day.

Today (technically speaking, yesterday) I got 3 old-school cameras. I can't wait to test them out. All day hangouts with Kristen and Vik are so much fun.