Kat and the Mystery of the Disappearing Glasses

At 2pm, in broad daylight (though it was a bit overcast), Fiona T. took off her glasses at the San Diego Zoo and attempted to put on a tiger mask. Her mother took pictures of her brother, Alex, and sister, Kat, who had also donned masks of different animals. Fiona unfortunately did not get her mask on in time to be in the photograph and her mother, noticing Fiona's unhappiness, decided to create another photo opportunity for her with stuffed animals. Fiona happily made it into this one and all was right with the world... until she realized her glasses were missing.

Within the 7 minutes that this scenario played out, where could her glasses have gone? Fiona had no recollection. We checked pockets, bags, the mask stand, the cashiers, everything. Nothing.

Then a thought entered Kat's mind. What mattered most in a case: evidence. Where did we have evidence: the camera. Excited, she flipped through the camera to look at the pictures of herself and Alex. There was Fiona in the background, glasses still on looking at a mask. Then a picture with her glasses off somewhere off to the left, getting ready to get into the shot (but not quite making it). But in between those two images... a picture of Fiona off to the very side on the right. Why would she need to go to the right - the mask stand wasn't there, nor was that where she wanted to enter the image... it could only be to...

Kat ran over to the bracelet stand which was to the far left of the masks and there, hidden under the stand were Fiona's glasses.

Evidence win.

Detective'd.

Being at home is...

Almost more work than being at school; I end each day exhausted (and under my covers trying to catch up with my Pokemon Soul Silver - so woefully behind!).

For the first time ever my family has decided (with a lot of pushing from me) to have a real festive Christmas. We've bought a huge tree that makes our living room look like a doll's house and I managed to spend over a hundred dollars on ornaments to do some ornament decorating! Somehow I didn't consider that orb ornaments all look kind of similar though.... A and R came over to help out with some decorating and we made orb bunches, orb aliens, orb wreaths.... running out of ideas.

What did we used to make as kids?

- Candy Cane Reindeer

- Popsicle stick frames

- Cotton ball snowmen?

They were always haphazardly made with glue trails running all over the place and paint outside the lines, but somehow wonderful, magical, and fun all at the same time.

Anyway, it's a good holiday season thus far. Pictures of tree/ornaments to come!

Semester's end

It's been a while since I've updated. There's almost too much and too little to say.

First Semester Senior Year is drawing to a rapid close with only 2 weeks, 1 paper and 1 project standing between me and 1.5 months of unadulterated bliss.

By bliss I mean I am going to:

- take house dance classes and choreograph for Cultural Rhythms

- cook at least twice a week, probably more

- relearn how to drive (whether or not I get to do everything else might be contingent on if I survive this)

- kick it with friends

- play Skyrim (seriously!!)

So close I can almost taste it.

Tales of Halloween

Halloween has always been an interesting time of year for me.

My first Halloween [age:5]

I had just come to the states and was trying to make friends in my elementary school. For some reason I ended up with a pumpkin costume for Halloween that my parents thought was adorable. All the other girls were princesses and cute witches and I was a round, bright orange pumpkin. Mortified, I considered not going out for Halloween, but the lure of free candy (despite not liking sweets, or perhaps I did at the time and the dislike developed later) was too much for young Yun-Yun to withstand. Needless to say that night I ended up knocking on the door of one of the most popular girls in my grade who nearly screeched with laughter "Oh my goodness.. are you.. a... pumpkin??" Never again.

Trick-or-Treating with Siblings [age: 13]

I had been looking forward to Halloween. Middle school had been a difficult time for me and found myself thinking I could get through things by looking forward to going trick-or-treating with old friends... and my little brother (and their little brothers). This was his first Halloween ever and it was my job to make sure he had a good time. I was getting to old to trick or treat alone anyway (hah, right) so we used our siblings as an excuse to go for candy. Things were going relatively well at first as my brother was still trying to soak in the glory that is receiving free candy from strangers. However by the end of the night the novelty had started to wear off. Soon he was noticing other things like... the old lady who answered the door "Trick-or-treat! Hey! You are an OLD girl, why are you look so old?" or the smell of the Indian house-hold "Trick-or-treat! Oh! It is STINKY. Why is it smell so bad??" Seriously, never again.

Trick-or-Treating in a Gated Community [age: 15]

Cons: Houses are way too spread apart; contrary to popular belief, uber-rich people actually give out less candy; why do rich people always live on hills/mountains??

Pros: Many who did not plan to give out candy feel bad and give out money instead, uber-win

Trick-or-Treating Senior year [age: 17]

See you can never be too old to go trick-or-treating. Senior year t&t was awesome. Clearly, the older you get, the more awesome Trick-or-treating gets.

Part of a speech for class

I'll write out the whole speech at some point, but for now part of the idea generated this website.

Creativity through Limitations

Sometimes total freedom does not foster creativity. Restriction fosters creativity.

Three summers ago in Japan I took a freestyle dance lesson that consisted entirely of ways to restrict yourself in order to foster creativity: don't take your hands out of your pocket until a pivotal moment, keep your left foot at the same place on the ground during an entire set, dance with your eyes closed, only move what's above the waist.

Yet it wasn't until today that I realized restrictions can foster creativity in other areas as well. For photography for instance, restrictions could be: take exactly one minute looking at an object and framing it before taking a shot, every day at 5pm take a photograph, don't use the zoom, don't look at the viewfinder and take instinct shots.

I have yet to flesh this idea out entirely, but I'm already excited to try some of these out. I have also started to look at light and lighting as a very tricky and difficult (for me personally; despite taking photo classes I still have no idea how aperture and shutter speed really work) but interesting project to pursue.

Lots o'media

Drawing is fun. You should draw too! :D