We are the soldiers of our own adventures, we are the keys to the kingdom

On the eve of twenty and rounding out the end of your teenage years, there is a certain amount of pressure at being nineteen years old. These are supposed to be your happiest years; these are the years when you will look your prettiest, when you will be thin, healthy and full of life. These are the years when you will have the most freedom, when you will care about the world and the world will still care about you. These are the years when you still believe that the world plays by your rules and can be neatly divided into black and white, good and bad.

It’s such a nice feeling to still be optimistic. I am at the weekend of my life, when I have not yet encountered the ugly face of disappointment and there is only the gentle voice of anticipation to guide me. The rest of your life is the Sunday after, when you only have the memories of Saturday to outlast the fading weekdays.

I have to keep convincing myself that I am happy. I’ve reached a kind of satisfaction that I’ve seldom felt before; I know who I am and who I want to be. I’ve achieved a lot through hard work and luck and I know that there are still dues to pay. But part of the excitement is knowing that each day, regardless of the obstacles, is different than the last. Knowing that each day brings a new lesson learned and one step closer to self-fulfillment. It becomes clear that it is only the self-imposed phantom chains of doubt and discouragement that weigh us down.

We are insignificant and infinitely small among the gaseous giants of the universe. Perhaps I being pretentious to suggest that the meaning of life is simply to exist and be happy on this rotating sphere hurling through time and space. But to what end does even the tiniest single-celled organism find meaning and purpose? If we are loved and remembered, if we believe that we matter, than we do, regardless that we are overlooked by the universe and cast aside by the volatile star stuff that spurned us. The world is only as evil, and as beautiful, as we make it.

I exist in this brief moment of time. And I am filled with hope.

...

Thought I'd post pictures of my Hermione costume from the Deathly Hallows midnight premiere. I had so much fun!

I swung my tassel to the left side of my cap, knowing after graduation there would be no going back

There was a furry creature in the girl’s dorm bathroom.

“Oh, god, that’s just gross.” I quickly backed out of the shower stall, placing as much distance between myself and the hairy monstrosity that lay tangled in the drain.

Each stall was its own germaphobic torture chamber; soap scum, hair (of different sorts), abandoned razors, and cloudy puddles of god-knows-what. I settled for the one least likely to contain some sort of fugus.

My floor’s RA made it her policy to leave a small radio turned on in the bathroom to make the watery, hair-ridden dungeon more bearable, but it did little to calm my nerves.

“…there’s a place downtown where the freaks all come around, it’s a hole in the wall, it’s a dirty free for all…” Ke$ha croaked on the radio.

To say the least, I’m not exactly a Ke$ha fan. “Dear god, just turn it off,” I mumbled under my breath as the cold water tumbled down my back.

“…take it off, everybody take it-” *click* The radio was suddenly silenced.

“Thank you, kind stranger!” I said from behind the shower curtain. I finished scrubbing in the shower and hurried to get ready for class.

The weather was beautiful today. It was perfect cardigan-wearing-warm-coffee-drinking-watching-the-sun-filter-through-the-darkening-leaves kind of weather. You forget how pretty natural light is after staring at computer screens for too long.

I sat stretched out on the lawn in front of the library, enjoying the sunshine and watching college students going to and fro across the plaza.

“I just…I just feel like there’s no chemistry anymore. I mean, I feel bad cheating on him, but what else could I do?” a voice behind me said. I sat on the grass, slowly chewing my lunch as I tried not to listen to the girl sitting next to me telling her friend about her recent adulterous behavior.

With so much activity going on around you, it’s hard not to eavesdrop on a college campus. You catch snippets of every day conversations everywhere you go; people talking on cell phones while walking to class, muffled voices leaking out of dorm rooms as you walk down the hall, conversations occurring while waiting in line.

However, I find it oddly comforting knowing that people are doing mundane social things. You always get that feeling that no matter where you go, people are having a good time, people are interacting, people are making new connections with single-serving or long-lasting friends. It’s not like high school, where the scent of loneliness and insecurity reeks everywhere you turn. Even when you’re alone, you know that there are people back home missing you and loving you, and you know that there are people here that want to enjoy one another’s company.

It is hard to be unhappy here.

I brushed the leaves off of my messenger bag and trudged back to my dorm. I sat atop my bunk bed, absentmindedly staring out the window. A couple was kissing under the nearby streetlamp. Like watching a silent film, I watched as they said their goodbyes before engaging in one last embrace. It made me wonder how many times my own narrative has coincided with others, how many times I’ve been the subject of someone’s wondering eyes, how, at times, I’ve made a cameo appearance in the lives of strangers.

You leave bits and pieces of yourself, drifting awash in the flux of humanity. But when the paradigm collapses, what do you truly leave behind?

…

This is the longest I’ve gone without writing a blog post and I feel terrible for being so absent from the blogsphere. If this blog was a neglected Tamagotchi pet, it would probably be dead by now.

So what has Where for Art Thou Romeo been up to? Well, I’ve been devoting most of my time and effort to various academic creative endeavors and, not to mention, engaging in social activities and gatherings pertinent to the college experience.

However taxing, I’ve been enjoying all of the assignments from my art class (W.A.R.P.) and here are some of the projects I’ve completed this semester:

The class was divided into groups of three and each group worked on a collaborative mural.

Our street art was even featured on the blog, The Zebra Owl!

My group's mural was titled, "Only Human" and it was meant to be a critique of technology's effect on society.

I also worked on a photography project, titled, "Pale Lights".

Here was the installation at the W.A.R.P. Haus art gallery:

I worked on a documentary photography project called, "McIntosh Village Ghost Tour".

In addition, I was a finalist for the Gainesville City in Motion Photography contest with my photograph, "Afternoon Cycle".

The other finalist's photographs can be seen here.

I also directed, edited, and composed the music for a short film called "Malaise".

As you can see, it's been a busy first semester for me at the University of Florida. I hope to post more frequently over Winter Break. Until then, happy holidays!

Life, I love you. All is groovy.

(photos by Cliff, wearing a dress from Goodwill and sunglasses from Target)

It’s a getting-used-to process. A transition process. A process of the process of the process.

It’s finding familiarity in the unfamiliar, structure in the unstructured, balance in the imbalanced.

It’s getting used to inhabiting a small space with two other living beings, it’s getting used to the hair-ridden dorm showers and the girl who blasts Ke$ha at three o’clock in the morning.

It’s getting used to going to the bathroom at the same time with people you pass by everyday in the hall but don’t know their names.

It’s the dent in the ceiling that says, “Julia’s head 10/14/06”, it’s the hippie professor that brings his guitar to class and goes into a face-melting solo, it’s the mace you clutch in your hand when you walk back to your dorm late at night after the concert has ended.

It’s the 100 page textbook homework, the Hare Krishna karma-free lunch, the essays, and the late night runs to Mochi for frozen yogurt.

It’s when your dorm is an ice box and outside is the Sahara desert, it’s meeting strangers and getting asked the exact same questions over and over again, where are you from, what year are you, what dorm are you living in, what major are you studying.

It’s the winning football games, the laundry mat, the band flyers, the after parties, the smell of microwave dinners, sitting out on the lawn, the eccentric projects your art class assigns, the walks across campus in the rain.

But ever so often, the lack of privacy gets under your skin and you feel suffocated by the discrepancy. Sometimes all you want is a quiet place to curl into yourself and be alone, not feeling the eyes of others or hearing their stale conversations. But then, in that forlorn silence, when all you have is your barren thoughts and your soft heartbeat, you want nothing more than company. And you crave that connection to the fleeting, single-serving strangers you have become accustomed to. So you go out and seek it, and you find beauty in the small universe that you have become embedded into.

This is college. And I couldn’t be happier.

Carpe deim. Joie de vivre. Hakuna matata.

Head full of doubt, road full of promise

"...summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And, like a dream, glides away."
- Sarah Helen Whitman

I hope all of your summers were rejuvenating, I hope you got swept off your feet and made new memories, and finished all of those projects you've been putting off. I hope you embrace the next season with excitement and anticipation and I hope you avoid heartbreak and disappointment.

I finally made it.
Life has been moving a hundred miles a minute and I've been thrown into the chaos. Gone is the relaxing summer afternoons, gone is my old life, gone is everything I've ever known.

I embrace the freedom of living on my own. I no longer inhabit the life of a co-dependent high school student, belonging instead to the next stage of development in my education and in my life.
I finally made it. I am now a student of the University of Florida.

The feeling hasn't hit me yet...feeling homesick and nostalgia for my friends and family. But it will. I know it will. There are times when I will make mistakes and look stupid, there are times when I will feel lost and afraid, small and insignificant. There are times when I will miss my cat's soft fur and when I will long for the familiarity and comfort of my old bedroom.
But I'm ready.
There are good times ahead as well, I can feel it. There are friends I have yet to meet, experiences I have yet to experience, and memories I have yet to make.
I'm ready.

...

Sorry for the lack of outfit posts. I'm still trying to find a photogenic, yet inconspicuous, spot on campus to pose for pictures. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these pictures I've taken from my iPhone.
All of the below photos are unedited and raw, and I've taken them from random spots on campus and other places.
You never know when inspiration finds you.

Control yourself, take only what you need from it

All pictures taken by myself and by Lisa.
Wearing: dress - Forever 21, blazer - Urban Outfitters, sunglasses - Target















I was greeted by the high pitched squeals of small children when I walked into work on Sunday.

I sighed deeply as I walked behind the customer service desk and attached my name tag to my shirt. Rubbing my tired eyes, I sat down on the swivel chair and surveyed the room.
I had arrived in the midst of a Buzz Light-year themed birthday party, complete with screaming tots and a Toy Story cake.

A couple of bathing suit clad hooligans streaked past the desk, laughing like hyenas and leaving a trail of water throughout the community center.
I inched up in my seat and peered over the looming desk to look outside. The swimming pool was a mess of activity. Little kids everywhere.
Through the window, I saw one of my co-workers mouth the words, “No running!” to a couple of small girls in pink bathing suits who continued to ignore him.
I plopped back down on my seat and sighed for the second time.

A little while later, after the presents had been opened and the cake had been consumed, the hyped up kiddies were ushered into the swimming pool to the relief of the worn out parents.

I was explaining my theories about the new Christopher Nolan movie, Inception, to one of my co-workers when I heard the sound of children yelling outside.
One of my other co-workers walked in.
“Fecal matter in the pool,” he said grimly.

I got up and walked out to the patio. A horde of miniature party goers were crowding around the pool, craning their necks to look in the water.
“Somebody pooped in the pool!” one of them shrieked. He was met with a resounding chorus of, “Ewwwwww!” by the other children.

“All right, everybody out! The pool is closed for the rest of the day!”

After the masses had picked up and left and the pool had been decontaminated, I was met with the beautiful sound of…silence. I half expected a tumble weed to blow through the facility.
We finished cleaning up and enjoyed peace and quiet for the rest of the afternoon.
Just another day on the job.

...

Later on, at around midnight, Dante and I pulled up to the McDonald’s parking lot and walked inside.

I jerked open the door and walked up to the counter. The place was deserted.
“Small French fries and one apple pie, please,” I said to the tired looking server.
“Would you like two, ma’am?”
“No, that’s ok, I only want once.”
“It’s the same price.” She looked at me from behind the resister.
“I’m fine, thank you, I just want one. Did you know that in Japan, the big sodas and the small sodas cost the same price in the vending machines?”
“Really? That’s cool! So you’ve been to Japan?”
I snorted, “I wish. But I just like that concept, you know? Just take what you need. I’m only going to eat one apple pie, so why buy two?”
She smiled, “Well, your order will be ready soon.”
I turned away from the counter and maneuvered around the janitor who was mopping the floor.

Dante was talking to someone on his cell phone; he made a face at me and sat down at a table. When my food was ready, I scooted down next to him and extracted my warm fries from the bag.

...

After we had finished our late night snack, we piled back into his car and drove home.
We arrived at my house and stood for a minute leaning against his car in silence. The streetlight projected a beam of light that encircled the driveway, trapping us within its glare.

I broke through the silence. “You know, it’s scary and kinda sad to think that our lives will never be the same again after this summer. We will never exist in this state of mind, we will never exist in this moment ever again,” I mused.
He nodded sadly, “Soon we’ll be saying goodbye to everyone we know.”

It’s true. This is the last time that I will ever truly belong in my house with my parents. After this summer, my home will never quite feel the same way again when I come to visit from college. My relationship with my family and friends will always be just a bit off, just a bit out of tick; a morphed version of what it used to be.

I’ll always be longing for this summer with a kind of fuzzy minded nostalgia. I’ll always be looking back to this time period and I’ll miss the mundane moments, the annoying moments, and the carefree moments. This will always be the summer before the rest of my life.

“But I just like that concept, you know? Just take what you need.”
Enjoy it while you can, just take what you need.

Facing the android's conundrum, I felt like I should just cry

All photos by me
Wearing: tank top - Target, skirt - Urban Outfitters



Redyed my hair. Goodbye blue/green highlights, hello purple highlights.













I carry around an innate, ever present bundle of guilt, packaged and bottled from before I was born.
I feel guilty for being American, for being white, for being…human.
I carry the crimes of my ancestors, the crimes of my species, and I feel ashamed.

I can’t help but long that I had the power to correct their past mistakes, wishing that I could undo Hiroshima, the slave trade, the Trail of Tears, the Gulf Sea oil spill.

I’m sick of being the bastard child of aggression and supremacy, I’m sick of being ensnared within the thorned branches of the Homo sapiens family tree reaching out for the fruits of reason and mercy.
I can’t shake this guilt.

I carry past burdens, but also my own guilt.
It’s there when I throw away the left-overs I can’t bring myself to eat and I picture the 16,000 children that die every day from starvation.
It’s there when I drive by the ghettos and slums and when I can’t meet the eyes of the homeless man daring me to look into his face, because I know why they’re there, I know about the social weeds planted centuries ago that they are still trying to untangle themselves from.
It’s there when I throw away my trash and the items come to life in my head, where I can see every piece of discarded garbage rotting in a stinking land fill.

And as much as I try to suppress these feelings and bury them deep, I can’t.
They resurface again and again, like the plastic trash that litters our oceans, bobbing along the currents of my brain.

But sometimes I wish this curse upon others, sometimes I wish that more people would see the way I do.
And then maybe they would realize that it’s better to be the steering wheel rather than the tires that drive off the cliff.