can you and do you believe?

So a few days ago a friend and I were having a nice little chat in the library when the conversation wandered to cross-dressers (sorry if that's not the "politically correct" name for them, but it's the only one I can think of that will get the point across) and she told me about a boy who she described was the "prettiest girl she had ever seen." Later that day, she sent me the picture via facebook, and well, just look...

very little is needed to make a happy life, it is all within yourself, your way of thinking

All I can say for certain is thank god it is Friday. Despite the fact that it's been a short four-day week of school, we had Monday off because it was a teacher's workday, it has been so so so incredibly long and senior year has been killer. Today concludes the fourth week since school started and let me tell you, the library and computers there have become my good friends. It helps that the library at our school is inarguably the nicest part of it.

So fashion weeks around the world have been in full sesh for a while now, but I haven't really followed up. There's some things I really like. Erin Fetherston's ethereal white eyelashes, Marc Jacobs' backward heels, Prada's silk printed tunics with contrast piping, but most of all, Bottega Veneta with all the khaki and neutrals with a shot of bright orangey-red lipstick. I love the idea of wearing neutrals with bright orange. Which reminds me, I still want that orange beret from UCofBenetton and that fluorescent orange AA thermal... Oh and I don't like to gush, but the bags are the most gorgeous ones I've ever seen! I aspire to own one of their bags in this lifetime.

Anyway, I was browsing TV Guide today and I saw that they were doing a mini-preview and promotion for Survivor, and interestingly enough it's in China this season! I've never actually watched the show, but it seems pretty intense. Then again, it's reality TV, that fact has its own implications; the people are attractive for the most part, the setting is interesting, so it should make for good TV, right? In the event that I do turn on the TV on a Thursday night, I'd probably be willing to watch.

I have classes bright and early tomorrow morning, so I'll bounce now and go to bed. Also, the fact that I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night just don't work very well with me.
*photo courtesy of style.com

your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others

Today I met with my English teacher to talk about my college essay. Overall, not bad, we bonded a bit, found some common ground. I really need to start on applications though... I've finally narrowed my list to about seven or eight schools. At this point, I just want to get into a college, high school has become quite monotonous.

Onto other topics. As of late, I have renewed my "love" towards pop singer Vanness Wu. Previously part of the boy band F4, that went their separate ways for a while and apparently, are getting back together again? I'm really not the type of person to go all 'omfug marry me I am your biggest fan eva,' I detest the word 'fan'; in Chinese it's become translated into fensi (glass noodles?) to match the English pronunciation. However, I'll admit that the guy's become one of the most enjoyable pieces of ear/eye candy recently. And I have this thing for people who can speak/learn multiple languages, there is something very very attractive about it.

do I have an accent?

So I was on one of the various forums I go to, and a girl posted a clip of her voice and asked if she had a Southern accent, everyone responded with a definite "yes." But to be honest, when I played the clip I could not tell at all, she sounded normal by my standards, but maybe its because my ear has been trained to filter out the supposed Southern accent?

You be the judge, and I don't think my voice is this nasally in real life, but maybe it is...who knows.

"china" no longer just the fine print on your playskool toys

Has anyone else noticed the excessive exposure China has been getting? It's kind of amazing, both the indecent exposure and the decent. Recently, China has been making headlines all over the world; be it the cardboard in steambun ordeal or the fact that Yaoming plants to tie the knot with long time basketball player girlfriend, China has captured worldwide attention with its almost overnight leap into the world market. So it shouldn't be surprising that the fat September issue fashion magazines (Vogue is 500-some pages, the biggest issue of all time!) have also featured articles on China and photoshoots in China, but it so is to me... surprising that is. Speaking of China and surprises, I've read that Lagerfield plans to show his SS08 collection on the Great Wall.
Anyway, I digress...back to fat September issues of fash mags. I finally got around to browsing through Elle and Teen Vogue a few days ago, the only September issues I own because I'm a bum about these things, and Teen Vogue did a photoshoot in Beijing with model Emma Pei, a Beijing native and supaaah model, and a few other local male models. The shoot is all strong rich colors with Emma Pei wearing almost no makeup at all and wearing alot of this season's looks (Balenciaga's clash of preppy/tribal/ethnic) as well as some local finds. The shoot spans a hefty # of pages in the mag and an intro that was about 3 pages or so was included at the beginning detailing what went down. I enjoyed lapping it all up, really really.


Elle did a small travel guide in its September issue about the places to eat, dine, sleep, tour shop if your aim is art and culture in Beijing. There's a few off-the-road places and interestingly enough, it doesn't include overly tourist-y places. I'm going to pack it with me when I go to China next year, should be fun. All this China-exposure really makes me want to just explore the country all over again. God, summer oh-eight get here ASAP. Hell, even out local newspaper has churned out its two cents on China! If any of you, see any fash mag China-exposure of any sort, email me, pics would be nice but not necessary (thesomethingpicasso@gmail.com). I know alot of October issues have already been out for a while. Speaking of which, my October issue of Elle (with Reese Witherspoon on the cover, the cutie mom!) is sitting around in my room waiting to be flipped through...



more later, school and homework beckons!

*photos by Linda, courtesy of Teen Vogue, Elle, and News&Observer

if you're going to listen to something, make it worth your while

We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.
- Grey's Anatomy

you can only be as sure of your answer as your least confident piece of data

it's Tuesday, school happened. It feels nice to have a shorter four-day week of school. In physics class today Sarah and I had a laughing fit, I can't even remember the last time a gigglefest like that happened. I honestly could not stop myself from laughing and I wasn't even sure what we were laughing at, we were doing error propagation, not really hilarious material! It felt good though, so good. She said she wanted to be more "normal," I quickly responded with "drop IB, stop taking all AP, stop worrying so much about grades..."-shpeal. I don't even know what normal is, how can I possibly be it; power to her if she does. Anyway, the rest of the day swam by, there were senior pictures third period that I didn't know about, hardly anyone did. I slept on the bus, had a pounding headache, popped some Tylenol and it was okay again. My mom was really cute about her birthday we ate at 3:30 because there was nothing else to do.

g'bye

we are who we are when we have no restraints

So, this labor day weekend was pretty uneventful, but I really shouldn't have expected much anyway. Let's see (yes, this is the time where I detail all of the happenings of my holiday), on Friday I rode the bus home as usual, read some, ate more...but the real thing, well I shouldn't say real, because...anyway! The thing that was on my mind that Friday evening was piercing my own cartilage. I've wanted to do it since last summer. So badly, in fact, that I actually visited some online sites to get the "how-to" on doing it at home. One site in particular that kind of stuck with me was one called Body Mutilation Zone and I can assure you, piercing your cartilage was the weakest thing they had on there. Ok, so fast forward to this past Friday. I got the rubbing alcohol, a cute little carved ivory rose stud, safety pin, ice cubes, etc. and put on some music. I'll spare you the details of what went down, but in a nutshell: I got a hole, couldn't get the earring in the hole and gave up. Right now? there is no hole to speak of because I was too scared for a redo and the original closed up over night. If you don't know me already, which you probably don't because this is the Interweb, I'm scared of hurting myself in any sense. Hmm, so end Friday, start Saturday.

Saturday I took a practice SAT test, sat around and looked in the mirror at all that was wrong with me, then went with my mom to Walmart for much-needed school supplies. I ended up stealing the planner I needed and buying a 6-pack of Fruit of the Loom vneck tees and Kleenex and hand sanitizer to buy over my physics teacher with. the FOTL tees are for myself but the latter two, physics yea.

Sunday, some guests came to our house, my parents went out to lunch with guests and company to an Asian fusion place and I figured out that 3.3875x10^9 molecules of every liter of water you drink also passed through Albert Einstein.

Monday, is today. I've worked on homework that I've been putting off, and I should go do some now.
Tomorrow my mom's taking the day off to go shopping for herself since it's her birthday, little does she know I'm going to sneak her present into the passenger seat of her car so she gets a nice little surprise when she goes driving. It should be cute.

If any of you who happen to cross this blog and don't know how I got here, who I am...this is where I used to be. Oh and I'm not sure if I'm going to keep up with the Chinese translation thing on here, because it is time consuming, we'll see...this is all for now.