After many revisions, long nights, and copy-pasting, I’m finally finished with my 2009 website. Why the change? Well since I’m graduating soon and looking for internships, I needed an interaction design portfolio rather than the graphic design portfolio that I had. Besides, my old website was dark and boyish which is NOTHING like what I really am. I like makeup and I like pink. So here now is my new portfolio. Woot!

Written on june 21 saturday

Alright…..I missed a few days again. Here’s a nice rundown.

june 18 wednesday - Rest day. Again woke up really late and went swimming and such. Got to work kinda in the evening but eventually found internet YAY so that got cut off. Got to talk to Nicole!!! Internet rulz! Also heard a nice couple having hot Italian sex from the other villa. Si…si….si….SIII!

june 19 thursday - Siena/montepulciano day. Another early day. Started off gathering downstairs and driving towards Siena, a huge hilltown with lots and lots of tourists. The first thing that we did was climb the big tower thing in the Piazza del Campo which was again, hellish. I think I’m getting used to it though. I really liked the piazza but its kinda weird. The tower makes a long shadow where people would sit during the day. There are no stair seating or any type of seats in the area but its cool to sit on since the amphitheater shaped blank space slopes down to a centerpoint. Lots of people sit around but they’re mostly American girls. Maybe some other time of the day. Went around with Derek and April for shopping purposes. Okay fine, next time I’ll go do genuine research. I had 2 cups of gelato, a scarf, and tank top and dress at the end of this day. Heehee

Then we went to Montepulciano and I was pretty excited since we get to do our wine tasting and I get to buy some alcohol woot! Montepulciao is charming too. Had another gelato when we got there. Dinner was AMAZING! Huge lump of nice and bloody steak. HUGE!

june 20 friday - work day. Had a break to do some swimming. At night, we went out to take a look at the fireflies by the creepy field nearby with a guitar. That was nice.

june 21 saturday - Goodbye beautiful villa. I will miss your open spaces and cave showers. Long drive to Florence where we stayed at Ingrid’s place. I lived beside the kitchen!

Written on June 17 tuesday

It’s actually 2am June 18 wednesday but whatever. So today was Pitigliano day, my research day. The previous night, Azmina, Derek Yoshi and I spent the evening planning for the trip today and translating questions etc. It was mostly Azmina doing all the work so thanks Azmina! I was pretty useless but I’ll put in my hours when presentation comes along.

So we started the early early 7am roll call in the 2 cars on our way to Tarquinia, an old Etruscan tomb site where you can go down steps and see what these tombs are like. They mostly look like little carved out rooms with faded paintings on the wall. One of them had group sex with a guy with a whip, woman bending over in front of him and sucking on the guy in front of her. Oh those kinky etruscans. The views all around are amazing and I’m still not sick of looking over the hilltop into the next town yonder.

Our next stop was the Saturnia hot spring thermal baths. I did not want to expose my leper-like sunburn to the world which I deeply regretted. It looked like so much fun and there are so many other fat, old and wrinkly people out there. Derek, Yoshi and April didn’t go in to for different reasons. I spent my nice sit down eating sandwiches talking about how bad/hot people look with Derek and taking super duper zoomed in shots of hairy, fat people in Karen’s camera. Her boobs are huge and I also took a nice macro shot of them.

Our last stop was Pitigliano. I was pretty beat when we got there, falling asleep in the car (contract!). We walked up a bit on the Vie Cave, a series of carved out pathways starting from the top of the hilltown to the bottom. After that, my team gathered the troops and distributed the work to everyone. Pitigliano was really fun and exciting, a real hilltown totally not catered to tourists (although after interviewing a few people, tourism seems to be the biggest earner of the town). The streets were narrow and winding, going up and down stairs getting to places. People were really friendly and me, Azmina and Brad even got to enter an old man’s vacation house and drink free aranciata! Score! How exciting. Derek and Yoshi managed to find a bunch of young artists to talk installation art with and ask about the rest of the town. Old people everywhere.

We had dinner in a fancy restaurant with really amazing food. Rus ordered antipasto for everyone which totally ruled. Pitigliano Bianco is really good and I had a few glasses of that to go with my super awesome Stinco di Maiale (leg of pork). So good. I can’t explain how succulent that dead animal part was. Murray had wild boar pasta and we split. I was pretty tipsy and really fucking full after all that food and wine but I just couldn’t resist some tiramisu. Heaven.

Hello…

Long overdue blogging. Really long.

Written on: June 15, Sunday

Hello. It’s 3:20 pm here in Dolciano. We’re in a country rest house apartment type villa waiting to leave to Pienza. It’s amazing here! miles and miles of nothing but trees with Karen in the background playing with Brad’s guitar. A nice change from the crazy city of Rome.

So what’s been going on? The first few days of Rome were spent touring around the city. We went to places like Campo di Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Vatican (and later the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel with Murray hours before our final presentation), Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, etc. I’ll try to give a nice rundown day by day from the timeline that Murray set up.

ROUNDUP

May 29th thursday - Another touring day. I woke up early with Derek and Murray to walk along the Tiber River from Campo Cafe Farnese. Superb cappuccinos. Walked with the rest of the group across the Tiber, to Tiber island into Trastevere with more churches. Had a really great lunch with Spaghetti Vongole at Ai Speghettaria. We stopped the touring there since it rained. Boo. Big group nap at the boy’s apartment. That night, we went up to Campidoglio for selter from the rain and towards the Trevi fountain which was empty except for the annoying rose vendors. Why did the Vancouver rain follow us?

May 30 friday - Derek and Murray wanted to check out Spagna in the morning before meeting up with the group but I ended up going by myself. I wanted to try out the other train station near San Giovanni Basilica instead of the one in Colosseo and asked people in Italian for directions. Proud moment. It was nice and empty with a few people scattered on the steps. Today was contemporary Rome day so we all gathered in Popolo and took a tram towards Parco della Musica, the new music complex for shows, concerts, operas, etc. HUGE. This German lady showed us around the place while musicians were having a rehearsal on stage. After a quickie snack at the bar, we headed towards an indoor basketball court Parco della Sport. bah. Walk walk walk then OMG ITS THE ZAHA HADID MAXXI under construction. Progress looks like it hasn’t changed since I stole pictures from the internet in January. After a nice photoshoot by the wall at Ara Pacis and a sneak tour to the swanky SAS Hotel y King Roselli, we headed to San Lorenzo for some neighborhood studies and the best gelato EVER at Fassi. 1.50 euros for a mountain of creamy goodness in 3 flavors topped off with MORE cream. Fucking awesome. Yoshi Karen Alex Brad Murray and I headed towards Spagna and situated ourselves in the middle of the tourist laden steps. Then I took a picture with a fake Roman. Weeee.

May 31 saturday - I didn’t end up sleeping and so I took a really really long shower while everyone was asleep and while there was still hot water in the tank. Afterwards, I took my camera to campo to watch the morning setup. I felt really stupid standing there for the longest time just waiting for stuff to happen. I set up a tripod right smack in the middle of someone’s spot and didn’t realize it till he back up into me with his truck. Nice man. He shooed me away quite pleasantly. I sat for the next three hours with a cappuccino then later on under the monument watching an old man sell his cool plastic chopper/peeler/slicer/dicer whatchamacallit. I bought one myself! Bought some food when Murray and Brad arrived and took it home.

This day was stairs day. I was cranky the whole way. I also lost some pictures which fucking sucks. It started when we ad to run from our apartment to the Ara Coeli steps beside Campidoglio on a hill through tons on slow walking tourists who unexpectedly stop for pictures and pointing. We ran UP to Campidoglio from the back, then down the front then up again to the meeting point. THEN when Rus got there, he walked us DOWN the church and UP Campidoglio again. I was royally pissed by this time. Then we went in the Capitoline Museum which was HUGE and took lots of pictures. Lots. I gave up somewhere in the middle since there were 3 other SLR’s. I wore my flipflops that day which did not help at all. Afterwards, we walked up to the Vittorio Emanuele II building which looks like a big cake “la torta” or a massive typewriter. That building is HUGE and we walked UP to the top then DOWN to the bottom entrance of the museum then UP inside to get to the museum then back DOWN. Fuck. To top stairs day off, we went to the Theater of Marcellus up and down more steps.

BUT this fun filled day was still fun. Despite all the walking and complaining and lost pictures. I promise. I enjoyed myself. I’m in Rome damnit.

June 1 sunday - Vatican Day! Today we went to St. Peter’s basilica at the crack of dawn to avoid the hoards of tourists. It was HUGE. Crazy big. I couldn’t imagine how people in the past constructed such a massive building. There were marble statues everywhere down low and up high. The paintings on the high high ceiling were NOT paintings and turned out to be mosaics. HUGE. We went up the cupula so that’s how we found out they were made of little colored squares. I think there were 500 steps to go up and around the winding steps to the top. You could see the whole Rome from up there. Uber cool. Everyone had some contemplative photo from that spot. It was free game after that. After a SUPER AWESOME pizza meal with tons of toppings with Rob, Simon, Brad and Murray, we hung out at Circo Massimo. Again. Which was nice

June 2 monday - Day off! Spent most of it being lazy all day until Rob had the idea of exploring Testaccio with me and Derek. We walked around and took lots of photoshoot photos without me in any of them. Grar. Ended up eating at a trattoria since we were starving with everyone in there speaking in english! Weird. The area was sketchy. Molto sketchy.

June 3 tuesday - Started today with our first interview ever with Jeremy King near Campo. He was kinda boring. I expected a cooler dude but he seemed uninterested in what we had to say. Bleh. Then we took it to Testaccio for lunch (I had various organs in sauce) going around the mountain of shards and looking at the sketchy looking clubs again. Afterwards, we walked to Ostiense to check out the Centrale Montemartini, an old power plant type place with old extra sculptures. Looked really cool but I got bored fast so I started taking pictures of butts and penises to keep myself entertained. Out second interview was with Labics where it was more fun. This dude just seemed more enthusiastic. I just about died when I got home on the fall-asleep couch.

June 4 wednesday -  Work day! Me, Rob and Derek headed back to Testaccio again in the morning to check out the market. So much goodies! I love markets! We bought some bread, meats, cheese and veggies which turned out to be a big mistake since we had to carry it around and couldn’t do more research. Oh well. We had to also wait for everyone else to get back home so we could put the stuff in the fridge. Grar. Stupid buzzer didn’t work. Anger. Ended up hanging around the house again and cooking dinners.

I really like cooking. 1.) I get to pick what to eat,  2. )I get to eat first and 3.) I get to eat more.

June 5 thursday - Work day part 2. The team decided to start later and head off to the Ostiense part of the city. We ended up finding a bunch of kids tagging a wall and interviewed them. Twas really cool! More walking around looking and stuff and taking pictures. Ostiense is really empty, a real working class town with workers. We went to the old air terminal and train station which was almost completely empty and run down. It would be perfect for a zombie movie. Perfect. More walking around in the sun and we ended up too far into Garabatella just in time for kids to get out of school. Totally different neighborhood but I didn’t bother doing anything except take pics since it wasn’t part of our scope. Lots of great graffiti on the way home though. Then we went home and “worked”

What I really like about the apartment is that it’s really chill and homey with pull out beds in the living room. It isn’t really such a good thing with presentations abound since it affords sleeping. Glorious sleep. We also had presentations. Eew.

June 6 friday - First day off! Shopping!

June 7 saturday - Bike day trip on the Apian Way. We all met up bright and early at the Pantheon and rented bikes near Ara Pacis. It was epic. We all biked along the Tiber towards the outside of the city. Derek, Azmina and I tried out going into various expensive shops but it was clear that the well dressed sales people were eyeing us to get the heck out of the store. We didn’t fit in with our sneakers and shorts. It was a hot hot day of biking and we went pretty far on bumpy cobblestones. We took really great pics and video on the way and found a little picnic spot. With Brad’s guitar and the frisbee, we hads fun. A nice relaxing day with everyone chilling out. On the way back to returning bikes and riding across the city, we were blocked by a huge gay parade. Large truck barges with half naked gay guys dancing to techno music. Awesome. We wanted to eat somewhere fancy but it was expensive so we decided on dinner at home again. Good times

June 8 sunday - After a failed trip to the Vatican museum (closed), we headed back home for lunch and I went with Karen and Brad for some shopping on the Corso. We got lost on the way home but made it in time for me and Murray to take the train towards the beach in Ostia. We weren’t sure which stop to get off on and I was getting pretty worried about the trip. Eventually, we ended up in Ostia Lido Centrale and found a really creepy looking hostel along the beach. It totally looked like an old, abandoned psychiatric ward but inside, there were colored walls and couches and INTERNET! Woo! Got to chat with Steffi to say Happy Birthday and tell her that I was still alive. We had a nice little dinner at a restaurant and lay down on the cold cold beach for a bit. We e-mailed Brad some directions and instructions for tomorrow.

June 9 monday - Brad and Rob came and we all baked on the beach. I got a really really really bad sunburn that still haunts me till this day. Peels and uneven-ness. It was fun though until we realized how crispy we were. Falling asleep was my mistake. BIG mistake. I look really really bad now. BUT still a lot of fun. Why didn’t I put on sunscreen?

June 10 tuesday - Work and read day. I ddin’t wake up early. I didn’t want to. My whole body was burnt. I spent it reading Dynamics of Delight and walking around like an old lady. Oh so carefully. I was just grateful that I shared the experience with Murray and Brad

June 11 wednesday - Another work day wherein I felt kinda okay enough to head out with Rob to check out Testaccio in the late afternoon. The central park was packed with kids and parents looking after them. Still pain. Cooked dinner at home to save money. At night we went all the way to San Lorenzo for some yummy giant gelato.

June 12 thursday - Slideshow making day. Before that, Murray and I made a trek to Trestevere to check out the Tempietto. We also went back to the super duper pizza place by Campo. Started putting together the slideshow with Murray by making sure all the pictures were collected and tagged properly. Twas pretty relaxing since we still didn’t feel the pressure. Rus came by to check on us which made people panic sort of. But whatever. I dragged a bunch of the guys over to the trattoria around the corner for some dinner which turned out to be really fun. A nice chill day before the ultimate panic sets in. Ended up staying up til 5am working on completing the slideshow.

June 13 friday - Happy Birthday Murray! Our big mistake today was visiting the Vatican Museum in the morning with a 5pm presentation that we were so not prepared for at all. Getting to the Sistine chapel was tough! There was a lot of people and we had to go through so many rooms to get there. So many. Probably took us a good hour walking around taking random pictures on the way. We also found Rafael’s School of Athens fresco and The Lacoon sculpture. Mondo cool. We got back and that’s when I started to freak out with the severe lack of time. Presentation turned out pretty good and we had a celebratory 8 course meal at San Lorenzo. Yoshi had a little too much wine that night and barfed on me! Yay.

June 14 saturday - Goodbye Rome. Arrive in Dolciano. Super awesome Villa with a pool and we get our own building! I got my own room with a roomie and it is HUGE. I love it. The kitchen is also large which is great for cooking. We went for a supermarket trip today and the bill was 146 euros for all of us. Holy shitballs.  We had a nice group dinner in the guy’s apartment with all of us a and plate of d-lish tomato sauce pasta. Oh and the bathroom downstairs is like a cave. I love the shower. I love it.

June 15 sunday - Pienza Day. Really awesome day. Party because the whole morning we spent in the villa lounging around waiting for the call to leave. We left at 4pm to go to Bagno Vignoni, an enclosed sulfur pool which was not for swimming. Eh. Twas okay. Then to Pienza which was a pretty cool place I guess. It kinda felt too touristy I feel, like everything is planned. All the houses have neatly placed flower boxes outside their window and I could see tourists abound. Local people were mostly old but it was nice to walk around aimlessly. It’s on top of a hill like most of the places we will be visiting are so the views from the edges are amazing. Had dinner at Ristorante Dal Falco and had Coniglio (rabbit). Mmmmm tastes like chicken.

June 16 monday - Day off. A whole lot of nothing. Woke up late, swam in the pool walk around and ate food. It was great. Eventually in the evening, my research group got down to business to prepare for the next day’s mission.

Hello! It’s week three but I’m going to start my blog from the very beginning with pictures so it might take a while for me to catch up to real time. Here it goes.

may 28 wednesday

It’s 2:17am here. I just finished taking my superfreezing shower (they turn the heat off after midnight). The windows are open and I hear people having sex. Well, it’s more of squeeky bed and dude making sounds from starting point to the…culminating point. No girl sounds or any second participant which is weird. I’ve never heard real people having sex and it was an OMG moment turned gross after the first 5 seconds. Cringe.

I surprisingly woke up early today at 6:15am waiting for my alarm. I wore my tank dress today which throughout the day became an increasingly good idea since it was hot and I was able to deliver air flow all throughout with my fancy fan. We started off at 8 by the Arch of Titus beside the Colosseum then taking the subway to Piazza del Popolo, the entrance into the city. I thought it was bigger honestly. Then we walked nonstop from church to fountain to piazza to building working our way down to Campo de Fiori where we had super awesome Italian food.

I consider myself a big foodie so it was heaven and I have proof of the 2 hours meal. It was a 4 course meal starting with antipasto (prociutto, mozarella, pomodoro, lentils and olives) then the primo (pomodoro pasta con parmeggiano), the secondi (some meat, veal and meat balls with eggplant and homemade potato chips) and finally the dessert, strawberries and some cake. I was full after the antipasto and the food just kept on coming. 23 euros worth every penny.

We walked a bit more to the ff places: crossing narrow streets while dodging scooters, trucks and cars. I loved walking through the winding walkways with real italians looking enviously fashionable. That’s my thing, people watching. They’re all always in some sort of laid back, I’m-so-hottt pose as if someone was taking a picture.

When Rus fianlly let us go, we ended up playing frisbee in the Circus Maximus. Imagine. This elongated stretch used to be for horse racing and other events nd sat 250,000 Romans at a time and we were in the middle of all that. We had some gelato and went back home to prepare for our 17-euros-for-10-people dinner at the guy’s apartment. Yay for saving money. The day ended with me, Morgan, derek, Yoshi, Rob and Brad going through gay block (with really really hotttt gay dudes) and hanging out alongside the Colosseum in the cool night breeze.

Can’t wait for tomorrow.

It’s week 12 of school and I’m losing interest.

Every semester at about this time, I have the “fuck it” mentality wherein I just don’t care anymore. I don’t go to all my classes, I sleep as soon as I get home (provided that I do go home that night), I’m late for meetings or I just don’t show up, I procrastinate more and leave everything to the last minute.

DP told me that blogs without pictures are boring. So here’s mine

Hello. Yes, I’m still alive.

So I’ve finally fallen asleep in class last week. I said earlier that I wasn’t bored by the class and no matter how long and dragging people might think of it I would still stay up and listen. Nope.

It was the week when I had April as a partner. Non c’e male! I stayed up till 6am and dozed off during Rus’ lecture on Florence. Woops. April did our topic on contemporary Rome, a nice change to all the historical research we’ve been doing for the first 4 weeks. I’ve always thought of the city as an outdoor museum, a preserved archaeological site. By doing a presentation on the cool new buildings and projects made me see it in a whole new light. I even got props from Rus for getting info on visiting the construction site of Zaha Hadid’s new project: MaXXI. 10 points for Kiks!

Zaha Hadid’s MaXXI

Lateran University Library by design firm King Roselli

outdoor concert in Auditorium Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano

ES Hotel by design firm King Roselli (we’re going here too!)

Last week was the start of research on Florence, the birthplace of Renaissance. Morgan and I did our topic on Brunelleschi, the guy who started it all. He was a weirdo and a genius who made the switch from Gothic style architecture (think Hunchback of Notre Dame) back to Classical inspired by ancient ruins in the cest pool Rome had become during the middle ages. He designed the dome of Florence’s cathedral S. Maria de Fiore without concrete! It was the easiest week ever since Morgan already did a whole paper on the topic and yes, I got a good night’s sleep.

After class, Simone, Karen, Brad + girlfriend, Derek, Yosheezy, Ryan and I (and Andrew!) had a celebratory movie night: Be Kind, Rewind. Funny! Super cute. Chinese MSG cheap food afterwards in Richmond. <3

School

I’ve had Brad and Azmina as partners in the past 2 weeks. With Brad, we did churches and basilicas. I learned that we we’re going to live down the street to the first church in Rome ever. It’s called the San Giovanni in Laterano and it’s the MOTHER of all churches even higher up that the Vatican. And right across the street from our apartment is this other fancy church called San Clemente built on top of St. Clement’s old house. Sweet. That’s on my list of go-to’s.

With Azmina, we did Piazza Campidoglio, Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. I was so into it that I can recognize EVERYTHING on that ceiling and also the mural of The Last Judgement on the altar wall. I’m so excited to stand in line for hours in anticipation of entering that squishy chapel. OMG noway.

Shopping

Yay for dresses! I went on a shopping spree this past week. 3 dresses from Urban Outfitters and some more guilty buys from Richmond Center. Though the whole mall was on sale, most of the stuff Steff and I got were not. Oh well, I’m happy. I got the dress down there but it’s too fancy for all day sweat-fests in Italy… or is it?

DDR

Okay, it’s impossible. There’s no way I can do an hour everyday so I’ve reduced it to half an hour. AND Stef found out how to crack open the hidden songs! Hoorah! More motivation to play.

Sad Part

1. Valentines Day [or Single Awareness Day] is coming up and I’m still single. Can someone hot pretend to like me for a day and make out?
2. I deleted my whole 391 folder. Shut up about it already!
3. I’m still fat.
4. I’m kinda hungry.
5. Money. Can I have some? I need a job but I’m picky…and I don’t wana work.

…plus a cup of French Vanilla, and we’re still here. Omg. It shouldn’t take this long but it always does. I’m going home with Karen in an hour and a half to catch the 5:30am skytrain home. I’ll be back after a quick shower and a home cooked lunch of toast and bananas. Happy February!

It’s Thursday, the official Italia all-nighter day and 11 of us are working in the microwave area/student lounge. It’s pretty awesome. There were other people working here but they’re gone. “We’re just like the Romans”.

L-R:Me, Azmina, Jenny, Derek, Karen, Yoshi, Simon, Alex, Ryan (MIA: April, Morgan, Brad)
(edit feb 2: Sorry. I forgot Rob. He’s the photographer.)