Date: 2009-07-14 19:15 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

 I have a blog of pretty images and words, a collection of things I find appealing in one way or another. Here.

Date: 2009-05-25 15:25 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

deactivated my facebook account for the moment to escape the shitstorm.

Date: 2009-05-22 21:12 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

From the past few entries, I've been giving off the impression that life is miserable. That is not the case. In fact, I am actually at a very good point right now. I'm happy with the decisions that I made, and almost everything recently have turned out in my favor.

That said, I am also really looking forward to the change in the (very, very) near future. I'll be moving into my new apartment in a little over a week. I'll be traveling quite a bit this summer. Then I'll start grad school in the fall (not that I haven't actually started already).

Strangely, I'm not feeling nostalgic or sad in the least bit about graduating. I'm not even sad about seeing some people less frequently, perhaps never again (although never seems always too strong a word). I'm usually a nostalgic junkie, but at the moment, I just can't get myself to be nostalgic. It's probably better this way. I'm ready to move on.

Date: 2009-05-13 12:49 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I cannot wait to get out of this hellhole of a place. CANNOT. FUCKING. WAIT.

I hate what my hall has become.

Date: 2009-05-10 22:02 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

just ordered tickets to paris in august.

Date: 2009-04-26 22:05 Subject: meow Security: Public

I think I will be getting him come June when I move into my new apartment.

( <3 )

Date: 2009-03-23 14:48 Subject: slightly belated news Security: Public

I got into my top choice grad school. Actually, it's the only place I applied to other than the 1 year program that I get in automatically.

I'm going to turn into one of those creepy people who never leave. Did I mention that there's a small but non-zero probability that my new office will look right into the kitchen of my current dorm?

Date: 2009-02-18 17:01 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Had a mini photoshoot last night.


( pictures )

Date: 2008-12-16 11:35 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

In China. It's fucking fantastic. I think I might blog about it again. Same blog as last time: Little Trouble in Big China.

Date: 2008-12-01 01:53 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Three years, three months, plus perhaps even three days ago (Allow me. It sounds more poetic that way), I had just arrived at MIT in fall of 2005, and Katrina had just arrived in New Orleans. One evening, I watched Garden State with some of my brand new friends in my brand new dorm. There was a part in the movie where the main characters were in a swimming pool talking about homesickness and what happens when your home is destroyed and how you're homesick for something that doesn't exist. I broke down crying after the movie because of that scene, huddled behind a giant refrigerator in the common room. 

Anyway, after watching the movie, I started listening to The Shins a lot. I listened to it on repeat walking to class in the nfinite, while tooling 8.012 in my room with the Boston skyline outside my window. I used to do this thing where I would listen to certain artists or albums on repeat during certain phases in my life as an attempt to systematically encode memories so that I can relive the past by simply hitting play. I used to do this with scents as well, but I've long since become too busy to be so meticulous. Freshman year, I listened to The Shins and The Postal Service. The summer after, I listened to Stereolab in my new, red room overlooking Susan Hockfield's backyard. I think I stopped systematically encoding memories through music when either my headphones or ipod broke.

Today, I got new headphones, and just for nostalgia's sake (as I always wax nostalgic in the Cresent City), I downloaded some albums of The Shins and put it on repeat. The past three years have passed far too quickly...

Date: 2008-11-30 03:51 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

My hands always smell like vanilla when I'm at home. It's from a bottle of soap from Bath and Body Works that I had bought on a whim some 5 or 6 years ago. Seems like such a long time now that I think about it. My parents rarely use my bathroom anymore now that I'm gone, so the soap has stayed for all these years, still half a bottle left. I like the smell, "warm vanilla sugars". I've come to associate it with home.

My room is still here for me, almost the same as it was four years ago. The walls are still the same pale blue that I had painted on a whim during spring break 2004 when I couldn't stand the previous orange any longer. I had picked the color for its name, "versailles blue". I think I only picked it because of its name. The masking tape that I hastily pressed around the edges of my room are still there, from back when my parents moved my furniture back in before I could remove the tape. I guess it'll always be there.

I always feel an odd sense of nostalgia whenever I'm home. Driving down the oak-lined streets of Uptown New Orleans, strolling down the alleyways of the Vieux Carré. Even sitting at home, staring down my furniture, the feeling cannot escape me. I'm not even sure it's nostalgia, actually. I'm not sure it's anything.
 

Date: 2008-10-14 14:23 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

For one person:
As a result of my mild prosopagnosia, I've been seeing your face everywhere. This morning, I passed you talking to someone on my way to class. At lunch, when I was talking to my friend in a store, you got in line and smiled at me. It surprises me a little to see you here again every time, but I know it cannot be you. 

By the way, I saw a poster for a showing of La vie en rose at my school this weekend. I'm going to see it.

For everyone:
My new web site is up: www.xiaosquared.com

Date: 2008-09-30 15:23 Subject: !!!!! Security: Public

SIGGRAPH 2009 is in New Orleans. I'm so totally there.

Date: 2008-09-19 22:22 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

take a picture of yourself right now.
don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
post that picture with NO editing.
post these instructions with your picture.

Date: 2008-09-19 04:22 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

sometimes i wish that i had lived a hundred years ago. all of my favorite art and music were from the early 20th century.

Date: 2008-09-12 01:04 Subject: le petit chat mort Security: Public

So I got this cat skeleton from jevousenprie, and I draped it in my jewelry. 

top of my dresser


close up of cat

Date: 2008-08-07 13:00 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

and all my nerves are filled with some kind of energy

Date: 2008-08-05 22:44 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Tonight, I am strangely sad. I'm don't know why, and I'm afraid to probe myself to find out.

Date: 2008-07-24 11:37 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Dear Livejournal,

I've been neglecting you. It's not that my life hasn't been interesting (you can only imagine...), but it's just that for the past two years, I never really felt the urge to broadcast my emotional status to the internet.

Maybe it's a good thing. I've had my ups and downs, as does everyone, but nothing seems cataclysmic anymore, not like in high school when my life could end with every small joy or sorrow (or a B). I think I wrote better back then. I was mintkitty, complete with emo ranting and bad CSS. At least it was an entertaining read.

These days, the petit chat de menthe has all but died, and I've switched mostly to paper or playing raconteur to fulfill my meager writerly ambitions. Most paper is for my eyes only. If you live close by me, I've probably shown you other excerpts, mostly drawings (if you would like to see, ask, and I will scan more just for you if I like you enough and have the time).

But I think I miss the days when life was a constant struggle, the days when I was a more delicate being, when a single glance could make me shatter or melt. I think I miss the days when I chased after dreams of la boème, when I mused about running away (and sometimes did, capriciously and very briefly). I miss finely composed letters of summers past. I miss fiction and poetry and philosophy and long conversations about these over the reflection of spires and sky in a cup of coffee. I miss nostalgia for an imagined past. On n'est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans.

I'm afraid I've become more serious, more cynically practical. I don't want to live like that, not all the time.

And so, Livejournal, let's start again, ok?

xoxo,
x

caveats:
- bonus points and/or my temporary eternal love if you can get my reference without the help of the internet.
- more bonus points and/or (a longer duration) of my temporary eternal love if you write me letters. i will spend hours lovingly crafting letters for you in return and send them anywhere in the world where you are (probably by email). 

Date: 2008-05-27 23:34 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

5.0!