Sunday, June 20, 2010

Too tired to post up a full entry today. I've done so much stuff in the past few days and I really want to recap on it, but I'm feeling frustrated and stressed out right now. Sometimes I feel like I'm fooling myself into thinking things are okay when they're really not, and when shit goes down, I just try to suppress myself to do whatever's easiest to make things peaceful again.

I hate drama. Too bad relationships and drama seem to come hand in hand...relationships are harder than 26 credits at a university, a student worker job, any possible extracurriculars and leadership positions combined.

I wish I had the answers. I wish I knew what to do next. My heart hurts.

[Project 365] Day 14


[Project 365] Day 14, originally uploaded by widescreenvision.

[Project 365] Day 13: from a different perspective

[Project 365] Day 12: overlooking the water

Monday, June 14, 2010

ps. i want this!

Watched "The Leap Year" tonight, cute movie. So far, I've watched 3 movies on this trip, this, "American Beaty", and "Letters from Juliet," and the last one was the only disappointment.

In the movie, they had the Claddagh ring, which I heard about a while ago...omgsh it's so cute! I want to buy a cheap one for myself! I never wear rings haha so I want to buy something cute while I'm here :)


The symbolism behind the ring is cute. Read about it on wikipedia ;)

starting work =D

Ah crap, it's been a few days since I've blogged! BUT I have been keeping up with my Project365 via flickr, which is more than I would have ever expected.

So to catch up a little...since my last post, I have:

- Gone and explored the area around my internship a bit! And got some cool historical tours
- Went out clubbinggg! ;)
- Watched the U.S. vs. U.K. World Cup match, and was highly amused that the U.S. did not lose completely (thanks Greene!)
- Gone to a summer festival
- Bought some new clothing items :D
- Started my first day at internship, which has been mostly administrative office work for now...hoping to get into the real stuff soon...!!

























Pringles! in celebration of the World Cup ;)

























In a store during the summer festival. The last girl in our program arrived, so finally everyone is here! Picture with her above :D

And now I am going to try to force myself to go to sleep...I have been sleeping SO LATE these past few days and I need to wake up at 7:45am to prepare for work. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

[Project 365] Day 8: to new york, love london

Friday, June 11, 2010

little sleeps makes a sad Frances

Ugh. Karma just hit me like a bitch. I've been getting so little sleep these days because it's been hard for me to fall asleep, and so I've been falling asleep around like 4:30 AM every night and waking up around 7:30 AM. I just woke up at 7:50, thinking I had to leave by 8:45 AM to go to Westminster, but now I just realized I was supposed to WAKE UP at 8:45 AM and then leave by 9:30 AM sighhhh my precious sleeeeep!

But I guess now, since I've sadly already rolled out and taken a shower, I have no choice but to wake up and progress on with my day. So I can blog, since I was too tired / lazy to last night haha.

Yesterday was a pretty chill today. Originally, we were supposed to wake up at 9 AM to go get some authentic English breakfast (apparently, English breakfast is really good) but we all totally overslept...I woke up at 1 PM and was like WTF? So that didn't happen and we just went to our tour at 2:30 AM. The tour was okay. I'm not particularly a fan of tours because you don't get to really do anything; yeah, you see some sights but we pretty much just stayed on the bus because it was raining and made like 2 quick stops. I still want to go back to those areas we saw on the tour haha.



















Place where King Henry VIII first "officially" spent the night with Anne Boelyn



Then, we got some free dinner paid for by EPA at Pizza Express. The pizza was pretty good, it was really thin. One problem I faced - they didn't have boxes for take-out! What the heck! Which sucks for me because I can almost never finish a meal and always have to take something back. So we ended up wrapping our leftover pizza in napkins (I believe they call it tissue though) to bring back to the flat =.=;; Ghettooooooooooo. We had some yummy dessert though, I got a tiramisu! <3





















Since people have interviews for internships today, we didn't go out last night. Instead, we stayed in and had a girls' night. We watched "Letters to Juliet," which sounded like a super cute movie, but ended up just being lame and had awkward non-developed characters who just had an awkward way of getting together. But it was fun at the end, making fun of the movie and its ridiculousness. Some of us also painted our nails ;) It was a lot of fun.





















And now, here I am, awake too early after sleeping too little. Sigh. I hope I will be able to make it tonight, when we plan on going out clubbing. Time to inject caffeine...>_<;;

[Project 365] Day 4: always prepared

Mmmm guards. Apparently, you can't stand with them to take a picture...have to be at least 5 feet away.

Next goal: to take a picture with them in the picture 5 feet away! haha

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

London, or England, or Britain, or United Kingdom?

Kind of lazy but I'm going to try to write a decent post. Today, we had our first day of our Politics class. Surprisingly, it was pretty interesting. Despite having slept for only 3 hours, and this class being 3 hours long (which I normally can't handle), I stayed awake the whole time! We spent the first hour or so talking about British culture. And I learned several interesting things:

- The ideas of what the difference is between London, Britain, England, the United Kingdom
- That London is one of the most multicultural cities in the world
- That Britain is also now one of the most irreligious places, which surprised me because all the history I ever learned about Britain has been about its wars over religion
- One of the most tolerant towards gays / lesbians
- The definition of being "Asian" here is completely opposite the U.S. - "Asians" are referred to as people from the subcontinent of India, and Chinese, Japanese, Koreans are just referred to as Chinese or Japanese or Koreans. In the U.S., Asians always almost is associated majorly with the Orient

Then, we watched this crazy murder mystery show which made no sense and didn't link together until the very end. It was like Law & Order on crack haha and even more vague and obscure.

After class, came back to the flat to make some quick lunch and relax for a bit. And then it was off to adventure! We went to go to Westminster since it was an area of interest and we took quite a few pictures :)



















BIG BEN! :D



















Saw the guards at the palace haha...next time I go, I'm gonna take a picture with them! :D





















With some of my flat mates :)



























Hehe taking photos in the telephone booth ;D

And then we went to get FISH AND CHIPS! :D



















It was quite yummy haha. The pub we went to was really decorated for the World Cup, thus my Project 365 photo of the day. We're going to go back for the U.S. vs. U.K. game on Saturday :D And then...went to a pub! There was one right under where the guys in our program live, and it was pretty good. Found my new favorite drink - Pims :)

Okay super tired going to bed.

One last note: Today, we spotted hot waiter Stefano two more times by accident! First, we walked by the restaurant to get to our class and the owner sees us, comes out just to wave to us, and calls the waiter up who proceeds to come outside and wave hello to us. Second time, we walked by a corner where he happened to be standing and he recognized us and waved hello and smiled hahaha. How embarrassing.

[Project 365] Day 3: Coming together for the World Cup

Picture of flags hanging on the ceiling of this pub I went to :)

quick goal & observation post!

It's around 8:30 PM right now, and we all just got back from eating at a pub. Taking a quick break before going out again, so I'll post more later.

For now, I'm happy because I completed a few of my goals! :D

- To go to a pub
- To take the tube
- To eat fish and chips!
- To visit the palace


Also, two more additional observations:

9. Pounds as in weight is referred to as "stones"
10. Money is referred to as "notes"
11. Exit is referred to as "Way Out"

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

[Project 375] Day 2: Violin at the British Museum

Picture of this cool violin I found at the British Museum :)

starting to explore

Today was Day 2 of my adventures in London! :) First full day of actually doing stuff...it was super fun! First, we had orientation which was from about 10 AM until 1:30 AM. It was pretty chill, we just learned more information about the program, what we should be doing, etc. It was interesting to find out what everyone's interning for. Luckily, there's 5 of us doing the same sort of internship, and I'm with two other people working for the same person, so looking forward to having adventures traveling with them and meeting other interns. And I was super happy because I found out food and drinks are subsidized~ :D

Afterwards, we went to Boots to buy some groceries and then we went off to the British Museum. It was sooo cool, we saw a bunch of Roman and Greek statutes, Egyptian mummies, the Rossetta Stone...I just took mad pictures of everything haha. And it was nice because we actually started talking to other people besides just the ones in our flat haha. We had some issue of people getting lost, and then more people getting lost going to find the lost ones...but eventually, we all left safe and sound.





















Our group (majority of the EPA students) outside the British Museum

Afterwards, we went to a nearby Italian restaurant to go eat where we not only enjoyed some good food, but some good eye candy as well. And it was fun because another Rochester girl and her roommate who are part of a different program came to join us :) One of the waiters was so good looking that all the girls kept cracking up and giggling whenever he came by. We were so obvious. And in the end, one of the guys with us actually asked the owner if we could take a picture with the waiter! It was soooo embarrassing. I think he  was pretty confused, because he tried to take the picture at first for us but then the owner told him to get into the picture with us LOL. And when we were leaving, the owner and the female waitress called him out to say goodbye to us haha. How awkward. But it was a hilarious start to the night :)





















Us and our cute waiter standing behind me hehehe.

Afterwards, we went to our first pub where we just ordered some drinks and chilled. It was a pretty nice place!


The girls with our drinks :)

Tomorrow is the start of our class, which meets once a week for 3 hours and is about British and Scottish politics. I'm looking forward to it but...3 HOURS?!?!? I can barely stay focused for 50 minutes. I hope I will make it through.

Additional observations of the day:
8. The British don't say standing in line, they say "in queue." Apparently, this is the same in India too, which I guess makes sense because of the British influence there.

Monday, June 7, 2010

[Project 365] Day 1: Settling In

The start of my adventures in London!
In my room, chilling on the bed. There's this cool mirror in the room so I figured I'd take a picture with it :)

Today is going to be the start of my Project 365. Hopefully I will be able to keep it up consistently...wish me luck! :D

first observations in london

1. British people refer to "Restrooms" as "Toilets" on their signs
2. Signs for elevators say "Lifts"
3. The bathrooms on buses look as if they're giant fridges. I don't understand how they work.
4. Seat belts must be worn on buses, or else the non-wearer is charged a fine!
5. London license plates are the same ugly yellow as the new New York State ones
6. British people use a lot of interesting words that seem to have bad meanings. Our guide kept using a word which he said meant "wh*te tr*ash" and he would just say it in sentence over and over again. I was like o.o;;
7. Crossing the street in London is both a dangerous and confusing task.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

some goals for London / Europe

- To develop a killer British accent
- To learn and understand European fashion!
- To have afternoon tea
- To go to Camden Market
- To go to a pub
- To visit FRANCE and at least one other country
- To take the tube
- To eat fish and chips!
- To visit the palace
- To take a picture with the palace guards
- To send postcards to friends back home
- To begin and actively keep up a Project 365 via flickr
- To have an awesome internship
- To not procrastinate on my analytical journal I'm supposed to do

To be continued...

a nostalgic melody

Went to Mannes College of Music today to accompany my brothers on their auditions. They auditioned for the prep division for playing violin. It was an interesting feeling to go to Mannes...the only times I've been there was to visit my friends Sho or Jon, which I had started doing since throughout high school. And now it's come time for my brothers to be making that step themselves and developing their skills as musicians.

It was a little bittersweet, because I never really got to take violin seriously. I started up lessons late in middle school, and the only reason I started in the first place was because I just wanted to learn to play for fun. But my instructor was insistent on pushing me...my first year of playing violin, I already took a Level 5 NYSSMA exam and was learning to play a Level 6 piece. I was playing pieces way beyond my skill level, and was relying more on piano skills to play violin. I could play fast pieces, but it was hard for me to play slow and emotional pieces because I never learned how to vibrato! I kind of wish I started earlier and was able to develop more. My orchestra teacher always commented to me how she wished she could "turn me into a violinist" but I got so sick of being pushed so hard that I just stopped enjoying it.

Nowadays, I barely touch my violin but I still play piano. I feel like piano will always be a part of me; I don't care if I'm not the best or whatnot. In middle school to high school, there were 3 years where I didn't take lessons and it felt so weird, like something was missing. Even in college, even though I don't have lessons as often as I should, I still love the feeling of playing and challenging myself to do better.



















At Mannes, chilling at the Steinway piano in the practice room~

Friday, June 4, 2010

Adventures Await!

It's crazy to me that I am going to be leaving soon for study abroad. I feel like I haven't done ANYTHING really to prepare for it...I think I'm going to be in for some major shock once I leave and get there haha. I'm more nervous about studying abroad that I was for leaving for college or anything else. Everyone tells me I'll have a lot of fun but I'm still kind of nervous :X

Things I still have to do:
- Figure out bank issues
- Finish packing
- Look over information for my internship
- Contact some people, friends of friends, who are in London
- Make some sort of plan on where I want to go while in Europe

Ugh. Well I guess that's what Saturday is for...yay procrastination in every sense! :D

In the mean time, it's been fun seeing friends from home & chilling with college friends as well. It's funny because most of the people who I've seen from college are my sorority sisters, which as a freshman I never thought I would really hang out with sisters that much haha. I was so worried about being labeled a "sorority girl" and whatnot. But I think now I've grown to accept that people DO label, people DO judge, but what do I care? It's not going to stop me from having fun and doing what I want. I feel like I was always afraid in the past of being excited to do certain things because I didn't want to look like an idiot or didn't want to be judged. But life's too short for all that.


















One thing college has taught me: to just enjoy everything I can, and not worry so much about what other people will think.

"What you want?"


"What you want?", originally uploaded by franstarrr.

Bored at home, so spent time taking photos of my puppy ^^

My "Forte": Worrying

I'm often told I worry too much...which I guess is pretty true. I really have no confidence in myself whatsoever, so when I'm faced with difficult situations, I feel like I can't rely on myself. I would almost rather trust anyone else but myself haha. College has given me opportunities to start to believe that maybe I can be a leader, but at the same time, I feel like I have the least confidence in myself.

I'm trying really hard to change that though, because I want to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I can be a leader. I'm starting to get worried that people might not respect me as CSA President...as much as I don't think much of myself, I don't want to be stepped over. I don't want people to think "so and so should've been President" or "Frances only got it because no one ran against her." Because I've seen a lot of cases were Presidents dedicated so much for 4 years to their organizations, and then the last year end up leaving with bad feelings because people just don't understand or talk shit.

Mike told me that being President means "doing all the work but having no one appreciate you for it" and I feel like that left him not as happy or enjoying his time as President as much, and thus leaving CSA with not the most happiest of feelings; it was more just being burned out. I don't want that for myself, I want to be excited, I want to inspire people in CSA, I want everyone to truly have fun and be proud of being part of this organization. And I want to be proud of being its President and feeling like I've accomplished something.

I guess it's just hard because not only am I just pretty unconfident in myself but I've seen a lot of the unhappier parts of being a leader in organizations like CSA. Hopefully I can change that.

















My beloved CSA e-board, this past year's & next
I can't believe I've been on e-board since my freshman year o.o 4 years already

















Don't seem like much of a "President" haha
I always remember thinking the CSA President my freshman year was cool...aiyahhh!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

finally summer & it feels so good!

This has been a pretty good two weeks at home. Just been chilling and relaxing until my trip to LONDON! =D


A little summary of the past month:
















FINALLY turned 21 haha and had a wonderful birthday at school thanks to my boyfriend and lovely friends =D Picture of me with some of my pledge sisters<3




















Watched my boyfriend and other friends at school graduate :):) Luckily he'll still be around working so we won't be apart yet! ;)














Went to Seattle for my sorority's National Convention! Got to spend time with my awesome big & little :)













Our chapter also won an award and three of our sisters got onto National E-Board, including my big! So proud.














Also been spending time with friends from home. Picture above with my dorkchestra buddies who I've blogged about before haha




























And now just pretty much chilling and getting ready to go. I bought a new lens for my DSLR, thanks to the helpful advice of the guy at B&H (MOST AWESOME STORE EVER!!) and Christy, who answered all my stupid questions haha and I'm sooo excited to play around with it!

I have so many things I'm excited for this summer, so many things I want to do this year...I hope I can do it! XD

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Welcome Back to Blogger

Going to try using the old blog again. As much as I like tumblr, I think people are too focused on just reposting stuff on there & I want something to actually talk about my life and the things I do.

So...I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK! :D

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

GOODBYE BLOGGER! ...for now

Gonna give up on blogger for a bit. It's been annoying me with how it messes up my posts and photos. So I'm going to give tumblr a shot. ANYONE WITH ME?? :)

Check me out there - widescreenvision.tumblr.com

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

OH NOOOOOOOO!!

I didn't blog before midnight. So technically it is the 6th but this is my post for the 5th! Haha. I'm really trying hard to keep up with at least this one New Year's Resolution...

Went to Flushing today...screamed for 2 hours in karaoke. I love when people get into karaoke, it's so cute!!





















Haha us dancing around in the large karaoke room. Surprisingly, a picture that I'm actually in that isn't one of those Asian self-portrait type shots. Sometimes it feels strange for me to see myself in photos that are candid haha I guess because I'm so used to being the one taking the pics.




























One of the aforementioned Asian self-portrait shots. With one of my beloved Choi twins! We've had a lot of interesting experiences in our years of friendship (I still can't believe it's been years already...) but it's always fun to hang out and catch up. He's so much fun to tease because he gets embarrassed easily :D

I like being at home and catching up with friends and hanging out...I'm not ready to go back to the stresses of school and whatnot yet. Just thinking about China Nite approaching is enough to make me queasy....haha @_@

Monday, January 4, 2010

some things never change...

I love how when you meet up with old friends, sometimes it just feel like you're picking up right where you left off. Even if it's been months since you've last spoken, the good friends are the ones where you just got back into the rhythm of things.

Today I got to hang out with three of my best buddies from high school. We used to nerd it out in the orchestra room...just chillin' and doing whatever haha. They were always there for me when I needed it most :) And as a bonus, today I finally got some much-needed closure...hopefully now I will never have a nightmare about certain things ever again :D I feel like I may have moved on a little bit more with my life today.

Some photos! Didn't get a chance to take any pics with my super sexy camera but oh wellz.



























Me and my youngest brother. He tries to be such a diva when we take pictures lol.




























Me and my dorkchestra buddies ;)

Gotta love times with friends. And wow I can't believe I've actually been posting once a day with photos, even though it's only been like 3 days haha. Now I gotta start working on improving my picture-taking...sighhh...@_@

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Good Start to the Year

So I'm trying to uphold my promise to take a picture every day and put it up...I'm trying to get my friend Rebecca from UR to do so as well. We both bought our Canon Rebel XS together, supporting each other every step of the research and paying process haha. I'm really excited to go back to school for more photo adventure :)

So today the picture I took is of the dumplings my family and I made together :)



















It was a lot of fun! And it meant a lot to me...usually when I'm home, I always end up going out a lot with friends. When I was growing up, I always felt really lonely in my house - everyone kind of came in pairs: my parents, my brothers. I was so much older than my brothers, and so I felt like I always had to be the responsible big sister. I could never talk about my feelings because I felt like I had to be the one to take care of my own stuff, and not burden anyone else. And my parents used to work so much so that we never really did many "family" type things. But now that I've gone to college, became a little more independent, and my brothers have matured, it's nice coming back and getting that family atmosphere :)

I still need to learn how to use my DSLR. I don't know how to position my camera and do all the focus and editing to make it look like a more professional photo. Ah well!

Friday, January 1, 2010

WHOA! A POST!

Hello!

So in light of the new year, I've decided to restart posting on my blog. I'm feeling good about this year - it's going to be busy as hell, with a lot of responsibilities and challenges up ahead...but I'm looking forward to it. I've always thought that I wasn't a strong enough person to handle a lot of tasks and duties that required leadership and organizational skills...but I am really looking forward to improving myself on that this year.

One thing I've decided to do to help me be inspired in keep blogging is something a friend told me about - "Project 365." From what I've gathered, what this essentially is is taking a photo each day to help remember and document the moments in life. I heard about it and I thought it seemed really fun...especially since I basically take photos almost every day anyway! I always carry my camera with me - I feel so empty when I don't have it. But this will be a good chance for me to learn how to actually take pictures, as opposed to just point-and-shooting all the time. I can play with my beloved Canon DSLR too :) So...one of my new year's resolution is to keep up with blogging and take one photo each day of the year! I don't know if I'll be able to do it but I'll sure as hell try =D

My New Year's Eve was a lot of time. I got to spend time with my beloved friends from high school, having a fun sober party at my house :) We watched movies and just chilled. I love hanging out with my friends at home because I always feel like we can have fun just...sitting around and talking. It doesn't have to be some big thing, I don't have to feel like I need to try hard to impress anyone. I can just be myself, and it'll be okay.

So last photo of 2009...





















(with some of my lovely high school girls <3)






















(picture of my desk...LSAT + work is going to be my life)

YAY! I'm feeling good about this =D