Day 248

December 15, 2009
Tuesday

Leaving this one unedited to adequately capture the crazy of this morning. The good news is that I successfully had two cakes out of the oven by 7:30 this morning. Take that holiday parties!

 

The Sad and Dramatic Conclusion

This project was scheduled to end on April 12, 2010. So where are all of the pictures? What’s the last shot? What are my final reflective thoughts? Did I flake out with mere days left to the finish line? Do I really have that weak of a constitution?
Well, my friendly friends… I was robbed.
Robbed of the glory of finishing this project, yes. But not robbed quite like Taylor Swift was robbed out of a “moment” by P. Diddy. I was robbed of material goods. Perhaps a lesser offense but crappy all the same. That brand new macbook I posted about? Gone. Old but trusty digital camera? Gone. I could go on… but as far as this blog is concerned those are the two items that really mattered for completion of the project. Along with the material items went the pictures. The last shot was of me and the trusty camera (Will’s camera to be exact) taking a picture at the same time as my macbook photobooth was taking a picture. It was cool. And so meta. You’ll just have to trust me.
I had to give myself some time to cool off after the robbery because… no one wants to hear someone reflect about the world’s evils and how good elementary school teachers could have prevented this (I sometimes find myself staring at rude people and wondering what their first grade teacher must have been like. Am I alone in this?). In the end, you can’t “let the terrorists win”. I’m finishing this project… pictures or no pictures. I’ll just have to be my own Beyonce. (Did I take the Taylor Swift analogy too far? Yes?)
So, I’ll focus instead on what I learned. I still took every picture and even though I don’t have the web evidence to prove it, I know in my heart what the pictures were and how taking time out everyday to do the project changed my perspective on things in little and big ways.
So, I’m going to reflect. Terrorists and P. Diddy’s of the world be damned:
-I find myself looking at flowers a lot more often. This is good.
-I find myself thinking about what one moment from the day could encapsulate my feelings, mood, goals, dreams, or struggles of the day. This gives me perspective I might not have stopped to consider before.
-I stopped caring about vanity as much and took more pictures of myself eventually. I have more freckles now that I live in California. I smile more in California than I did in NJ (yes, you can go back and see the transformation). Maybe I just got more comfortable around the camera. Maybe I am really, really vain at heart. =)
-I still find the camera intrusive. I AM actually a shy person. You won’t see many pictures of people in the project unless they’re practically my bff.
– Will is really kind. I love looking back and seeing the little things that made me smile on a day to day basis and finding that Will was at the root of so many. From writing “I ❤ u" with forks and spoons to letting me borrow his camera for 365 days he's one heck of a nice guy. I will keep him.
-Editing. All the cool kids do it, it turns out. Would you write an important paper without editing it? No? Then why would you expect to make a beautiful and worthwhile photo without a little careful editing? Took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out.
– The sun shines more in California
-But… I like seasons. Japan might have ruined me in this regard, but I'm always looking for signs that things are changing. Signs that one day I'll wake up and the world will be a different color.

It's finished. How will things change from here? I'm currently looking for my next 365 project idea. Outfit of the day posts to make my wardrobe more daring? Paragraph of the day posts to make my writing more daring? Polyvore set of the day to make my polyvore skills more bomb? Suggestions are not only encouraged… but rudely demanded. Ideas?

 

Day 354

March 31, 2010
Wednesday

Goodbye cottage living. We left Santa Monica today. Drove up the coast, stopped at some hot springs, and sang (literally) every song we knew to compensate for lack of radio, CD players, and other devices on which to transmit the voices of human beings who can actually sing. I think I ran the batteries down on my voice.
All in all this was a great road trip. Perhaps the best.

 

Day 353

March 30, 2010
Tuesday

I had to include at least one picture taken out of a car window. This is LA. I had a lot to choose from, too. Everything from E. Ron Hubbard Drive, to the “Ron Hubbard Life Exposition Center, to the Scientology Celebrity Centre, to an unrelated Life Rejuvenation Fellowship. What can I say? I’m fascinated with crazy ideas. Beginning to think maybe I should move to LA.
Anyway, Echo Park reminded me of my old college. Run down, pretty in a run-down buildings-meet-parks sort of way, full of hipsters, filled to the brim with ghosts of sad and creepy tales, and art. Lots of art. Coincidentally, I know several graduates from my college now live in a large house there… and make art. Makes total sense to me now.

 

Day 352

March 29, 2010
Monday

This is in line to Jimmy Kimmel Live. In our defense… they had given us free Rockstars to pound before we went in. My favorite guest? Kevin Nealon. Everything out of his mouth was hilarious. Now that I follow him on twitter… my life has been exponentially enriched. All in all, today was a very quintessential Hollywood day.

 

Day 351

March 28, 2010
Sunday

“Cheaper Than China 2k10″* began after a 6-7 hour drive down to L.A. We found ourselves lying on the beach in Santa Monica, pondering the philosophical complexities of why roller coasters on a boardwalk = 10x the fun of rollercoasters on dry land.

*A note about the origins of the name, “Cheaper Than China in the year of our Lord 2010”: Someone at our non-profit, not nearly full-time job suggested we all go on a Spring break trip to China. Great idea! They planned the whole thing. It sounded awesome. The total cost? More than we make in 4 months. Thus, “Cheaper than China” was born instead! Poverty is the mother of invention and good times. And her boyfriend appears to be a man named PBR. He’s fun too. There are appropriately inappropriate Ryan Adams lyrics to add here…. 😉

 

Day 339

March 16, 2010
Tuesday

Walking to work yesterday I looked up and busted out laughing. This shot easily beat the competition for picture of the day:

Tell me you aren’t smiling now. 🙂

 

Day 336

March 13, 2010
Saturday

Took a walk in the sunshine today and found myself lingering in the AIDs memorial grove in Golden Gate Park. The magnolias were in full bloom and I took far too many pictures as I sat there thinking. My old college roomate and I have been having long conversations recently about growth opportunities and going places we never saw ourselves going. I couldn’t help but think of a quote she texted me recently as encouragement :
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

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“I miss Kentucky and I miss my family… the sweetest winds they blow across the south.”- Ryan Adams

 

Day 335

March 12, 2010

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about print mixing. It was huge on the runways for this spring and even this upcoming fall and every time I make a set on Polyvore experimenting with this trend, I end up LOVING it. But… truthfully, I don’t know if I’m actually bold enough to pull it off. So, today I tried it out in a cowardly fashion by paring my 100 yen (roughly a dollar give or take the exchange rate) plaid earrings with a nautically striped shirt. I actually had a student tell me I didn’t match! So, someone noticed. Next week I need to swim out of the kiddie pool and dive into the deep end.
In the meantime, check out this collection I made on Polyvore as a form of inspiration for myself: Playing Matchmaker

 

Day 334

March 11, 2010
Thursday

Student perspective:

I had to share this shot, however unflattering. A student of mine “borrowed” by camera during the last 5 minutes of class and snapped this of me crouched on the floor and intently listening to why another student found it acceptable to draw a giant turd on his science homework. Clearly, I was having none of this explanation. It’s so interesting to get a snapshot into another person’s perspective on ourselves.