sleep is my friend & my rival

I'm exhausted.

I had to go to the dentist as soon as I woke up, then went to Ikea with Mom & Courtney, then thrifting in Redwood City, then I prepared & made dinner which took FOREVER. Then Sophia came over and we sipped on tea and caught up, but it didn't change how fucking tired I was from running around all day.

Fatigue is a stupid thing.

Found the most amazing things at the thrift store though!!! Too bad I left my camera in San Diego, but I'll try to take photos of my finds as soon as I can. My favorite is this huge vintage ski coat that looks like its from the 80s or 90s and these FUZZY PLATFORM SHOES omg I can't wait to show them off.

Wow I'm really tired though. How am I writing this. I should just go to sleep.

OH. Shit, I've also been asked to appear on Rajiv's world famous podcast, Pop Culture Coffee Break, where I will be talking design. UC logo in particular. I came across this illustration that I really liked that reminded me of how we design things for the EVERYMAN and how we are being erased in the process

Unfortunately I have NO CLUE who created this because NO ONE ADDS SOURCES ON TUMBLR.

Here's some other stuff I've been feeling lately

it's whatever

Here are the unfinished photos from that photoshoot I did with Courtney about being a teenager and being bored & angry because no one cares about you. It also takes place in UCSD, because even though I'm almost not a teenager, I've been getting this sensation the most at this university. I'll put up the finished ones later, enjoi:

home again

Since I wrote last, several things have happened:

• Kyle & the hockey team (WHY ARE MOST OF THESE POSTS ABOUT HOCKEY? I DON'T EVEN-) beat UCSB and now they're undefeated
• I finished a photoshoot with my sister, but I have yet to scan them
• I lost the SD card to my camera but I'm sure it is at chris and sam's somewhere :<
• Kyle's roommate moved out
• We finished finals
• And now I'm home

Life's been busy I guess, I don't really feel like writing all the time any more but I really want to start writing at least a little bit again. When I opened my bedroom for the first time in forever, I found an old journal (the papermate one with the colorful grid paper!) with little entries written in no specific chronological order of little memories I had chosen to write about on any given day. Most of the entries were from junior or senior year of high school, but sometimes I couldn't even remember when they had happened or if they had happened at all. It was weird reading all these things that supposedly happened but then not really remembering them. So I figured that I should get into writing again, because if high school was that easy to forget, college will probably be too. Also my short term memory is suffering. Because reasons.

from this cute store in LA called the Pygmy Hippo Shoppe 

Christmas!!! will be here in a week, which kind of sucks, now that I think of it. Winter break is actually shorter by a WHOLE WEEK this academic year. The injustice. I'm only going to be home for two weeks too, because I'll be with Kyle during New Year's! Now I really regret losing the SD card to my camera and not bringing it :< I'll have to ask him to use the camera on his phone or something.

My homecoming was nice though. Sunday afternoon we had a bunch of friends over for lunch and they ended up staying for dinner. Sean had Elijah over, Courtney had Zong, Becky, and Nidhi, and I had Ben come over. It was so nice seeing him and catching up with him again. We haven't been able to speak much this quarter because we both lead busy lives (I guess he lives a busier one D:) and because the cops still have his phone from that one time he was arrested. He actually still has 2 misdemeanors against him which is CRAY because I know he wouldn't do anything illegal but I guess that's how it is. We're trying to petition the Governor to drop the charges against him and the other people who were arrested but I don't know if it's going to happen. Hopefully we'll be able to plan a bunch of COOL SHIT with our friends like a movie night or something.

I miss Kyle a lot. He's all the way in Texas now, he came back home yesterday night. Now I can sob-sing "Transatlanticism" from my bedroom floor.

Just kidding. I think being apart is getting easier, not that I like it any more, but that maybe I'm more mature or our relationship is more stable that it's getting easier to deal with it. And I like being able to cope and not having to cry myself to sleep for eleven nights straight.

I have a couple of personal projects to do, like my website and more art (though I didn't bring my tablet or my sketchbook home :<) and learning Python and doing some stuff with the Raspberry Pi that dad bought :D so at least I'll be busy if no one wants to invite me to play with them :<

Yeah that's it for now. Sorry I don't have any photos to make this more interesting but THAT'S LIFE. Here's a still from Twin Peaks for no reason:

satan is my motor

Depression is weird. I don't really understand my depression. I'm not always sure what motivates it, and I can't always pinpoint what I'm upset at when I feel upset. This gets very frustrating.

Like. A couple of hours ago today Kyle & I were in his car, lying down and listening to classical piano covers of songs, and all of a sudden I felt an inescapable feeling of sadness. I tried to pin it down, but I couldn't. Eventually I kind of got the general feel of it i guess... for some reason I am still real scared of losing Kyle and admitting it is the first step in telling myself that THINGS ARE OKAY and that my brain is JUST TRICKING ME AGAIN. I seriously repeated those things in my head and I felt okay but it was all just so weird and unpleasant that I was super happy but very very sad at the same time. like maybe I felt like it was too good to be true and that I was too happy. I was afraid it was going to end.

I had to sort out what is going on for Thanksgiving today since I can't make it to the train station to catch the last train on Wednesday and they don't have service Thanksgiving day. Eventually my grand-uncle said that he's able to pick me up Thursday evening. I actually really wanted to spend the holiday with Kyle, since he'll be alone :< At least I'll be able to have lunch with him or something. I'm thinking of making reservations somewhere.

Maybe i should talk to him about my paranoia. I need someone to talk to and let all these feelings out to and like a shoulder to cry on would be nice. I can't believe I am still thinking about this >:|

I have photos from the hockey game on saturday, but I don't feel like writing about that today.

bunny & me

Yesterday night Kyle & I had his room to ourselves. FINALLY. He even took me out to dinner afterwards :) ...even though we ended up eating at Olive Garden. I was so hungry though, I just wanted to eat something. It was my first meal the whole day. We had the unlimited salad & breadsticks, bruschetta, and shared a fettucine alfredo. Mediocre food (the salad was the best tbh), but the point was, I WAS HUNGRY. And having a whole evening together with my baby was pretty nice.

Kyle had a hockey game against Chapman University last night too. At least I think they're called Chapman University? I'm not sure what the school was called but I know it was Chapman *something*. It was a pretty great game to spectate, not because it was a good game, but because THE PEP BAND was there. I've never been to a game with the pep band before, but they turned it into quite the competition of who was more drunk and belligerent. I think they won.

Beforehand, Chris, Rustin, Sam and I siphoned off some of the homebrewed stout that Chris & Rustin made a week ago. It's still not finished brewing yet, but it was an emergency, and it was ~4.7% alcoholic! It was pretty goddamn tasty. We drank during the game and had a good time yelling at the other team and cheering for UCSD. They won 9-3.

Tonight they have another game against Ventura, which is actually a pretty good team. Then they're throwing a huge after-party at Alexei's house. Though I'm not sure how much I'll be able to drink tonight since I got so drunk last night :<

I've been doing pretty good emotionally. Artistically/academically, I have a project to bring in for monday so that I can work on it during class. I also finished writing a manifesto for CGS100 a day(ish) before it was due! *so proud* I've been waking up pretty late though, so I haven't been able to try out different outfits lately. Good thing everything in my closet pretty much goes together. I really want to go thrifting for some chiffon skirts. I have a lot of pencil skirts, but only one flowy skirt that moves when I dance. I want more skirts like that!

I already spent $10 on the indie game, thomas was alone, so I don't know if I should go clothes shopping again. It was worth it though! It's a puzzle/adventure game. The graphics are really simple, but very amazing, and their jumping algorithm is one of the best I have ever seen. The narrator is a british guy, so everything sounds adorrrable, like they're storybook characters or something.

Thanksgiving is this coming Thursday. and I'm leaving for the OC Wednesday night to spend the holiday at Ong Ba Chi's house. Should be fun. I miss having a home cooked meal too, and the uncles are always fun to hang out with.

Okay... back to playing more games/thinking about the diptych project for vis. Hopefully I'll have more photos tonight!

i don't have time to sleep

I'm supposed to be writing a manifesto for my critical gender studies class but I don't really feel like doing it so I thought I'd get started on this blog. i guess the main purpose of this blog is to explain what is going on in the State of Ashley so I can like go back and poke around and remember stuff. 

I tried doing a secret tumblr and a word document but they didn't really do it for me. I guess I just need something visually appealing but also super secret too. Like who is going to bother looking for this blogspot. and well if people do end up reading this, then I wouldn't mind all that much either.

And since I'm finally doing something that I've only been thinking of doing up until now, I should really get around to doing all the things I've wanted to do. I'll make a list:

• a gazillion diy projects like making knee socks, making those animal buttons for my San Diego Zoo denim button-up, bejeweling my tights, painting my shorts, painting everything
• do more personal art projects
• create a zine
• find new friends
• join an art collective
• get a tripod

I honestly wish I had someone to do all this stuff with... it sucks when all my friends are guys and when no one really does these things in this side of California. at least I think not.

I SHOULD REALLY GET BACK TO WORK *_________*;;

Oh yeah, I worked on a huge art project for VIS1 this Veteran's Day weekend and here is a photo of it in progress:

It's finished now but i haven't taken a photo of it yet and it's still hanging out in the back seat of Kyle's car. I got a lot of good reactions from it. I've gotten better at communicating things to other people and stuff. 

I also finished my deep address project for ICAM101. It's a choose-your-own-adventure game (kinda), and you can play it here. It takes place in a world where IPv6 addresses are allocated by population growth. When some people run out, they can buy an additional address from another person. 

Hopefully I'll have time to expand on it. I think it's a pretty cool idea and could definitely be fleshed out a bit more. 

The winter quarter's almost here, and I've already signed up for the two ICAM classes I'm taking next year. It's one art history class about computing in the arts, and the other is an introduction course to programming in the arts. I'm also going to take Introduction to Cognitive Science and a math class. I want to see if cog sci interests me and if I want to pick up a human-computer interaction major on top of my ICAM major and studio minor. 

Life is pretty much all up in the air now. I don't really have any plans. This weekend Kyle's playing hockey against some colleges and the hockey guys are throwing a HUGE PARTY so maybe I'll have pretty pictures to post on here (but probably not).

OK. Time to work.