self
Showing posts with label self. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self. Show all posts

My good friend Alyssa, who blogs at The Devil Orders Takeout, tagged me months ago for the Tag of Happiness. I've brought onto the blog today because I thought it would be a good way to reflect on what I'm grateful for—the small joys that make existing a little easier than it would be otherwise. A little mixtape of good things, so to speak. As I forge on into this terrifying, wonderful new year, I'd like to keep these things in mind to return to on the loud days, the cruel days, when the world forgets to be home and the sun forgets that I'm under it.

SONGS: "Wait For It" (the Hamilton cast) | "Landslide" (Oh Wonder) | "Amsterdam" (Imagine Dragons) | "The Ghosts of Beverly Drive" (Death Cab for Cutie) | "Various Storms and Saints" (Florence + the Machine)

 BOOKS: East (Edith Pattou) | A Darker Shade of Magic (V.E. Schwab) | The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Rae Carson) | The History of Love (Nicole Krauss) | Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)

 FILMS: The Secret of Roan Inish | The Man From U.N.C.L.E. | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Pride and Prejudice (the 2005 adaptation)

 WORDS: rapscallion | inimitable | rainwater | underfoot | aureate

 SCENTS: instant ramen after a morning spent skiing | lavender | my grandparents' house in Busan, South Korea | new books | food carts in the heart of the city

 MISCELLANY: orchestras, especially orchestras tuning | drinking chocolate | snow dusting rooftops and greenery | late-night conversations where nothing is too insignificant to say | homemade whipped cream

 BLOGGERS (whom I tag, if they feel inclined to do this): Adelyn (Fable and Fancy) | Rachana (Addicted to YA) | E.R. (Rabbits&Roses) | Samantha (Her Inklings) | Eve (Twist in the Taile)

What are the things making you happy as this new year opens? (And who understands the reference—albeit a very out-of-context one—in the post title?)

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Hello all! The gloriously witty and always-insightful Heather from Sometimes I'm a Story was kind enough to bestow upon yours truly the Infinity Dreams Award. Thank you so much, Heather! Here's my response:


Rules:
  • Thank and follow the blog that nominated you.
  • Tell us eleven facts about yourself.
  • Answer the questions that were set for you to answer.
  • Nominate 11 bloggers and set questions for them.

Eleven facts

  • I love anime and people seem to forget that a lot. (Fairy Tail / Kuroko no Basket / Sword Art Online / Soul Eater fans? HIGH FIVE.)
  • I've eaten squid ink pasta. (It was really good!)
  • I've been writing about teenagers since third grade. Yay for inadvertent YA writing!
  • I'm basically incapable of writing fanfiction. Whenever I attempt to, it comes out as a puddle (so does most of my writing, but with my original work I can usually salvage something).
  • I'm probably that one suspicious girl in the corner wearing a hoodie. Especially if said girl has ink/pencil stains on the side of her left hand. (Hey, hoodies are comfortable.)
  • My favorite Studio Ghibli movie is Spirited Away, but honestly ALL their movies are my favorites on some level.
  • I just made a resume website thing in an attempt to be more "professional."
  • I am so into Halsey's music right now you don't even know.
  • I'm thinking of doing Communication or Media Studies in college, with possibly a Creative Writing minor.
  • I'm super pumped because I get to take Diversity & Justice and Graphic Design 2 at school for second semester this year.
  • Unfortunately, that also means I need to get both Health and PE out of the way in first semester—usually it's one per semester—which IS GUARANTEED TO MAKE ME CRY. I kid you not when I say that these two classes are the most awful ones in the school. I detest them. (On the bright side, though, once I get these credits out of the way, I *never* need to take another Health or PE class again.)

How do you feel about soft tacos?

I don't really eat tacos a lot? But I've never experienced a particular dislike for soft tacos on the occasions when I have eaten them. I suppose I have a fairly good opinion of them on the whole. Unless they're sentient and they're coming for me in order to avenge their fallen brethren.
bilbo being #relatable

Favorite Disney movie?

This should go without saying, but: Mulan ALL THE WAY. Mulan is such an amazing, resourceful, courageous character (both in the movie and in the original ballad, although the two versions differ in many ways). Plus, the movie has sass everywhere and much girl power, and when I first saw it, it was the one Disney movie I could really relate to—the main character was Asian (hooray!) and she didn't fit into the typical definition of 'femininity' (although again, movie Mulan is very different from ballad Mulan). I think it completely changed the way I looked at storytelling and at my own identity.
what a dork. i would say 'protect' but you don't need protecting
FAVORITE
the animals in this movie have so much sass
Close second is probably Big Hero 6, though. There's an adorable huge balloon robot and an equally adorable main character. There's diversity and sass. There are super cool action scenes (I mean, that's honestly a necessary thing sometimes!). I just love Big Hero 6 a lot, and I feel like it's not appreciated enough.
*screaming*
*still screaming*

Best villain ever?

Oh my goodness, this is so difficult. There are lots of tired, cliché, uncomplicated villains out there, but there are also layered, fascinating, magnetic ones. Currently, my favorite villain is Talis, the amoral AI overlord of the world featured in Erin Bow's The Scorpion Rules (it's a straight-up genius YA dystopian that comes out later this month; I was lucky enough to snag an eARC). He's snarky, brilliantly strategic, and utterly remorseless, but with a surprising and breathtaking depth to him. Definitely one of the most memorable villains I've ever read.

Favorite musical?

Of the musicals I've actually seen in person, I have to say my favorites are Fiddler on the Roof and Wicked. (Although in the case of Wicked, I may be biased because I saw it in New York. On ACTUAL BROADWAY.) Fiddler on the Roof has elements of culture, history, and family that I didn't think I'd enjoy but ended up absolutely loving, and the dialogue, music, and character dynamics are spot-on + so well-done. Wicked is absolutely hilarious in some parts but powerfully reflective in others, as it looks at the strange power of friendship, the twisting nature of time, and the boundaries between good and... well, wicked. 

How much do you hate spoilers?

This is how I react when I see one for a fandom I'm not in and want to get into, or one for a fandom that I'm in but am not too deeply invested in:
i've been waiting to use this for forever
Now, this is how I react when I see one for a fandom I'm really into:
look i'm not in the asoiaf fandom but i still love daenerys? oops
In sum: I hate them a lot. Please don't bring them anywhere near me. In fact, KILL THEM WITH FIRE. (Or alternatively, please use spoiler tags. I'm really not a big fan of getting a bunch of spoilers and then being forced to go into a show or story or film where everything is a foregone conclusion.)

What’s the best thing about your blog? 

Honestly? Probably the title. (FOREVER PROUD of my blog title.) The actual content, on the other hand—well, anyone who's been here for a while knows that sometimes my posts can become puddles of caps and sappy thoughts. If you're looking for a ~quality~ blogger with her act together (and an actual posting schedule), you'd be best served in continuing your search elsewhere. Although for those of you who have put up with me for a while: thank you! You're the greatest.

What are three books that everyone must read before they die, period?

  • All the Rage by Courtney Summers, for its discussion of rape culture, its take-no-prisoners attitude, its powerfully dynamic and unavoidably human main character, and its gut-wrenchingly visceral prose.
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, for its lens into the tide of history, its deeply passionate and distinctive cast of characters, its sweeping and masterful writing, and its paragraph of a first sentence.
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, for its unique and stunningly emotional narration (courtesy of Death), its heartbreakingly wonderful characters, its historical setting, and its grasp on what makes us human.
End of discussion. *bows*

Discuss your opinion on corn on the cob.

Honestly? I think it's generally delicious, but it's very dependent on the kind of corn. For example, yellow corn here in America tends to be very sweet and nice (in my experience), while corn in Korea tends to be more whitish and honestly kind of tasteless (but nonetheless amazing once salted). Overall, though, I like it, and since I tend to eat more corn on the cob around my birthday month, it holds a pretty positive connotation for me. 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Honestly, I'm pretty open to whatever comes my way as long as a) it's related to books, publishing, media, and/or the Internet in some way, b) it pays enough for me to support myself, and c) it allows me to write novels, poetry, and the like on the side. Of course, being a full-time poet and YA author would be the dream, but I realize that that's not really feasible until I have at least a few books under my belt aka a vaguely (that's a BIG 'vaguely') reliable source of income.

Do you have a favorite punctuation mark?

What can I say? I'm a walking cliché & I love ampersands. I love fonts with pretty ampersands. I love the geeky Latin origin of ampersands. But I'm also quite partial to semicolons, especially when used correctly; I really don't know why other people seem to find them so intimidating. I've got a weakness for em-dashes as well, which you've probably noticed if you've been reading the blog for a while—I tend to overuse them, I think.

(Props to you if you see what I did there. *twirls*)

Describe the best trip you ever took.

I'm fortunate enough to have gone on lots and lots of wonderful, eye-opening trips in my lifetime so far. But my best trip was definitely the one I took to Korea the summer after third grade. I got to attend elementary school for about a month—at the same school that my mother attended when she was tiny!—and I learned a lot and made lots of friends (turns out being from America at a Korean school does great things for your social status). And oh my goodness, Korean school lunches are perfection. (The students there actually refuse to eat the school lunches because they think they're low quality. Imagine how they'd react to the cardboard we're typically given in America.) I also took taekwondo classes for the first time while I was there, which was at once terrible and amazing, because a) it was incredibly hot and humid, which isn't great if you're engaged in intense physical activity every single weekday, but b) that also meant I got to eat a veritable mountain of ice cream. Plus, taekwondo is a lot of fun. And of course, visiting Korea is always wonderful because I get to see family (the vast majority of my relatives live there) and practice my Korean (fun fact: I actually picked up the dialect of my mother's hometown within two days) and eat delicious food (so much food).

 Honorable mention goes to my most recent trip to Korea, about two years ago, in which a hairdresser asked me whether it's true that everyone in the US carries a gun everywhere. (Wake up, America! THIS is how the rest of the world sees us.)

I hereby bestow this award on

...some lovely recent-ish commenters who also run stunning blogs. (I was going to also give it to Alyssa, but I know you're dealing with the tag backlog of the century, so.)

Chiara | Aneeqah | Adelyn | E.R. | Alex | Ana | AnQi | Morning | Samantha | Aimee | Jo

Some questions for you all

  1. If you could steal the wardrobe of one book character, whose would it be?
  2. Your life has just become a novel! Write a short pitch for said novel.
  3. What's your favorite foreign film? 
  4. What does breakfast typically look like for you?
  5. If you could make a PSA on any subject and have it broadcasted to the entire world, what would that subject be?
  6. What is your stance on unicorns?
  7. Favorite obscure word?
  8. Who is your favorite non-human(ish) fictional character (think animals, robots, etc.)?
  9. Go back to the very first post you made on your blog. Is it cringe-worthy or surprisingly okay?
  10. You have to assemble a team of nine bloggers—including yourself—for a grand and dangerous adventure, Fellowship of the Ring-style. Who would you choose and why?
  11. What is your favorite soup?

Thanks again, Heather! And congrats to the award recipients.

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Oh no, summer's all but gone! I must say August was rather languid—but in a good way, I think (I hope!).

I was also kind of good at Twitter this month. (Or I was bad at life. Your pick.)

On the blog


That one time I was offline *gasp*

  • (This actually happened on the last day of July, but my July recap was already posted by then, so.) I went to help out at a speech and debate fundraiser—a car wash, actually. I basically stood waving a sign trying to get cars to come over. It was ridiculously hot and I was standing in near-direct sunlight for around an hour and half. So of course I ended up developing a headache? And my eyes started hurting? And...?
  • I MEAN WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO SEND CHILDREN OUTSIDE TO DO A FUNDRAISER IN 100°F WEATHER
  • OH YEAH IT WAS THE CHILDREN'S IDEA
  • The Adroit Journal's 2015 Summer Writing Mentorship Program has officially come to an end. We mentees have been happily swapping final portfolios and telling each other how brilliant we are. (Seriously, though. Reading my fellow mentees' work is pretty much getting a free look into the future of the writing world. It's an honor and a joy.) I'm so grateful to Adroit, Peter LaBerge (who runs the journal and the program), my mentor Aline, and my peers for making this experience amazing. If you're going to be in high school in the coming school year—anywhere in the world!—and you write (fiction, poetry, journalism, scripts, experimental prose, etc.), I'd highly recommend applying to this program when apps open in spring 2016. 
  • My month itself was pretty uneventful! I'm gearing up for the school year, spending a lot of time (too much?) at home and/or with my family, and enjoying summer while it lasts.
  • At one point, though, there were wildfires in the mountains near where I live, and some passing winds blew the smoke from those fires into the city. When I say it was everywhere, I seriously mean everywhere. It was blanketing my neighborhood; it was cloaking the downtown area. The air quality got so poor that it was officially labeled "unhealthy." It was a pretty unsettling but interesting experience, I have to say. 
  • I went to a college information session featuring the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgia Tech. 
    • I feel like I got a lot of good insights into each school, but I left feeling like the University of Illinois and Georgia Tech really weren't for me. (They both felt really STEM-focused, and while I admire and support anyone working with STEM, I myself don't plan on going into one of those fields. I feel that if I go to college somewhere that's really STEM-focused, then I won't be as much of a priority as STEM students while I'm there. Obviously I don't really want that.)
    • I'd already gone to a UChicago session once before, so I knew that their well-rounded liberal arts-based curriculum really appealed to me, plus I really liked their flexibility and their willingness to recognize a variety of intersecting interests. 
    • But I hadn't known much about Johns Hopkins before the session, so it was really cool to learn that they have a very flexible open curriculum and place an emphasis on research (even for non-STEM students!). They're also a liberal arts school, though not a lot of people know that.
  • I got my schedule for school! I'm taking it pretty easy school-wise this year so I can work on my extracurriculars and Do Productive Things. I also took my school picture and oh my goodness. WHY do my pictures always end up being so terrible?
  • SCHOOL IS STARTING IN A LITTLE OVER A WEEK SEND HELP
  • I'm super nervous for sophomore year, though. Oh my goodness. I know there isn't much reason to be, considering I'm only taking two IB classes this year, but I can't help it.

I've been watching

Oodles of good stuff to tell you all about this month! Lots of history, action, gorgeous visuals, and more.


I watched The Bletchley Circle on Netflix this month, and wow. This is such a cool show. Basically, this is a British mystery miniseries set in 1950s England, almost a decade after World War II, and it follows a group of four women—former code-breakers at Bletchley Park during the war!—who solve mysteries together now that the war has ended. Millie, Lucy, Susan, and Jean are linked by their intelligence, their friendship, and their shared desire to make a difference in the lives of civilians, though they no longer do intelligence work for the government (and are bound by law to keep their work at Bletchley Park a secret). What results from this incredibly powerful character dynamic is a clever, twisty, delightfully feminist series of mysteries that is also stunning in visuals and soundtrack. NYT has called it "a clever, entertaining way to pay tribute to women who in their time were often overlooked and underestimated, and nevertheless found ways to never be ordinary," and I couldn't agree more. Definitely a must-watch if you like mysteries, girl power, suspense, great characters, or any combination thereof.


Since one of the movie theaters near where I live has been selling tickets half off for Tuesday showings, my family and I decided to go see the new Mission: Impossible film. Yes, this movie definitely wasn't perfect (kind of generic, honestly, and nothing mind-blowing), and it certainly skated on the surface of ridiculousness more than once. But it was a lot of fun! There's something about the banter, action, and style of the Mission: Impossible franchise that I've always liked.
yay for motorcycle chases


I also watched the animation film Song of the Sea, and oh. Oh my goodness. What a treasure this movie is. I'd HIGHLY recommend this movie for fans of The Secret of Roan Inish and The Tale of Princess Kaguya—this is very, very high praise coming from me, considering how much I adore those two films. But I'm 100% not kidding when I say that Song of the Sea combines the wonder and mythology of Roan Inish with the absolutely brilliant art of Princess Kaguya. The art is gorgeous, the characters are adorable, and the movie is filled with magic and whimsy. Love love love. (Also I love watching non-US animation movies because the way they're approached is just so different and exquisite.)

(On a mostly unrelated note, this was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature along with Princess Kaguya and I'm SO bitter that they weren't given honors. Although the film that did end up winning was Big Hero 6 and I love that a lot, too. So. Tough year, I guess.)


My family borrowed this from the library, and I don't think I was anywhere near prepared for the emotional rollercoaster and intellectual insight that this film would provide. Idris Elba delivers an absolutely magnificent performance as Nelson Mandela, and Naomie Harris gives an equally brilliant one as his wife, Winnie. I think this movie did an incredible job of capturing the blatant racism and violent struggles that the apartheid system in South Africa was both born out of and reinforcing. There's also so much food for thought in terms of violence, protest, and ideals. This is not a comfortable movie because history is not comfortable. But it is, without a doubt, a very necessary film and stunningly executed. I loved it.


We went to see the Korean film Assassination (암살) at a local movie theater, which was cool because theaters in my area never show Korean movies. This was was a film about the Korean independence movement against Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s. Jun Ji-hyun (sometimes known as Gianna Jun) stars as talented sniper Ahn Ok-yun and kicks so much butt I can't even. I really appreciated the variety in the characters, as well as the action (Korean films tend to get a little more bloody than American ones, so that was an interesting change). But I think the most interesting aspect of this film was seeing the patchwork of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and western culture that existed in Korea and China in the 1930s. It was both aesthetically very intriguing (think of all the clothing styles and architectural bits mixing! cultural blending is fascinating oh my goodness) and very cool how all the characters could slip in and out of different languages. Admittedly I had to read subtitles here and there to be able to follow along completely, but I still really enjoyed the movie.


And last but not least, I watched the Cartoon Network series Over the Garden Wall on the recommendation of a friend. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but I came out super happy. This is kind of like a dark fairytale, but with some amazingly odd humor and really pretty backgrounds thrown in. It's fabulous. Wirt (pointy hat) and Greg (holding frog), the two main characters, are utterly adorable to watch, and I love the bluebird Beatrice's sass game so much. (And Wirt is BASICALLY ME.) Here, I'll show you:




Their character dynamic is so precious. Also, yay for magic everywhere. Plus, each episode is only a little over ten minutes long, and there are only ten or so episodes, so you can easily binge-watch the series in one sitting (which I did). 

Help, someone teach me how to Instagram

Remember, I'm @clocksandcages on Instagram if you want to follow along!
look at this gorgeous cake my mother baked. (meanwhile, i was being annoying.)
#bravenewotms is somewhat underway.
udon is my first and greatest love, tbh.

How was your August? Is the school year starting for you? Let's chat in the comments!

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Ah, July! It's always one of my favorite months of the year, for pretty obvious reasons that have BIRTHDAY written all over them. But I feel that this July has been one of the best.

On the blog

  • To kick off my birthday month (I'm fifteen now! EEEK), I opened up a Pinterest contest for writers! That ends TODAY, and the results should be out soonish after that!
  • Alyssa the Great tagged me for the #MoreHappyThanNot tag, so I incorporated that into a Weekend Wordfest post about my writing growth.
  • #LitLove (with my lovely ATTAC gang) swung by for another round, this time on the haunting horror work and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe.
  • I participated in the Tag of Randomocity, thanks to the loveliness that is Alex McCarron and her blog.
  • For another Weekend Wordfest, I shared some bits of On the Midnight Streets by doing my part for the 777 Challenge (thanks Rachana for the tag!) and linking up with Alyssa and Emily's Snazzy Snippets. 
  • I announced that book reviews and other bookish whatnot are coming back to Fairy Skeletons.
  • I did a mini-review of Emily St. John Mandel's gorgeous and poetic Station Eleven.
  • I also did a mini-review of my Freshman Fifteens mentor Kim Liggett's spooky, romantic debut, Blood and Salt.

That one time I was offline *gasp*

  • I had so much fun on Independence Day meeting with family friends and having lots of good food and watching fireworks. 
  • My birthday was wonderful! I got to do just about whatever I wanted, because my family is the best, and I had so much phenomenal food. I just.
  • I took a short trip out of town with a dear friend of mine, and we spent lots and lots of time together. I also got to see one of my other friends who moved to the area about a year ago. It was a wonderful experience, if a little strange (it was the first time I've gone on a plane trip without my parents). I'll be able to put it to good use, as I learned so much about observing people and absorbing subtleties of character.
  • And, um, food. We had Indian and Italian and Korean food while we were there, to be exact. Oh, and pastries and French toast and the most sublime omelet I've ever had in my life. (The friend I was with is the biggest food snob I know, so.)
  • I've been writing and exploring a lot for my Adroit mentorship, which is pretty much over at this point. I wish I could share some of my most recent work with you all, but alas, I've got to revise it and put it together for competitions and things. 
  • Yeah, I have to up my game so I can actually get into a decent college. Fun times.
  • Anyway, I feel that I've grown leaps and bounds as a poet, and I've tapped into a really unique headspace that I think has come from Adroit forcing me to be prolific (two poems a week is no joke for this turtle-speed writer, you guys). I've also been reading lots of contemporary poetry to try and inform my tastes better, and it's been fascinating. I love how my style has developed over the summer—well, when it's not busy being a disaster—and I hope you all will be able to see some of my newer poetry in the coming weeks/months/years.
  • Oh yeah, and I managed to finish the longest poem I've ever written without losing my mind. (All right, fine, that last bit is debatable. But hey, at least the poem is done.)
  • I just really liked this month? I need to be more productive, yes, but I feel like this month was really nice.

I've been watching

surprise! my parents actually let me watch this
While it 120% is NOT something I'd have watched purely out of my own interests—this movie is solidly outside of my standard comfort zone—I'd been hearing a lot about Mad Max: Fury Road on Tumblr. It was tasteful! It was feminist! It was well-executed! So naturally I became curious.

This film is essentially a two-hour car (truck? assorted post-apocalyptic vehicles?) chase across a brutal but very aesthetically pleasing desert landscape. I've heard it described as "very artsy but also explosions," and I'm here to tell you all that that's completely accurate. The soundtrack is gold (hello flamethrower electric guitar), the action is heart-in-your-throat thrilling—high praise coming from me, since I don't normally enjoy action movies all that much—and the worldbuilding is subtle but incredibly ingenious.

All of that good stuff is made brilliant by the heart of the movie: the characters.

The storyline of Mad Max: Fury Road centers on a group of sex slaves, or 'wives', who are forced to serve Immortan Joe aka Actual Scum of the Earth, a prominent leader in this post-apocalyptic desert. But surprise! These women are fed up with being treated as objects, and they show it by getting the heck out of Immortan Joe's fortress.

With the help of Imperator Furiosa, who is one of the greatest female characters I've ever had the privilege of encountering in film.
FURIOSAAAA
My absolute favorite thing about this movie, beyond all of the wonderful aspects I mentioned before, is how it treats its female characters as human, as deserving of respect, as fierce and kind and sometimes cruel. As full of anger and the potential for anything and everything. The women are never sexualized by the camera, despite the fact that the wives are wearing little more than strips of gauze the whole time. It's blatantly feminist without ever explicitly mentioning gender inequality, and it's critical of other issues without mentioning them, either. It's so well-done. Ahh.


My mom stumbled upon this little French animation film at the library and decided to bring it home for us to watch. And OH MY GOODNESS. The concept and characters were adorably done, and the art itself was gorgeous. Ernest and Celestine's story of unlikely friendship is heartwarming and lovely—who could imagine an artsy mouse and a lazy bear having such a grand adventure together? I'd recommend this film for fans of Kate DiCamillo's books.

Also here, have some screenshots:

Help, someone teach me how to Instagram

As always, click to get to the full-size photo!
birthdays call for cake. mine was delicious. (and had a nice color palette to boot.)
i tried out steller with some much-deserved piano appreciation! i've embedded that below:




Links of interest

  • This essay by Andrew Solomon in The New Yorker outlining some advice for young writers is gorgeously written and very thought-provoking. Well worth the (admittedly somewhat long) read.
  • Meg over at Cuddlebuggery redesigned the covers for Rae Carson's Fire and Thorns trilogy (you all should know that's one of my favorite series of all time by now). And GUYS, she has mad design skills. Her use of colors, fonts, and icons basically totally rocked my world. It's all amazing. I actually kind of prefer them to the actual covers!
  • This article in The Atlantic about teen writing contests is super insightful, and it contains a lot of hard-hitting points that I can definitely agree with. Some very good food for thought, especially for teen writers like me who want to get more competitive. 
  • This essay by Ocean Vuong on his experiences and growth as a writer is beautiful and brimming with meaning. Ocean Vuong is one of my favorite poets ever—right up there with Siken and the crew at The Adroit Journal—so this is really special to me. 
  • Alyssa @ come on, you know exactly where (it involves takeout and a killer color scheme) did a great, very on-point post on ethnicity and casting for Disney's live-action Mulan adaptation. (However, just a historical note: I don't think China ever technically had Korea under its jurisdiction. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was my understanding.)
  • The lovely Paola Bennet @ Paola Francesca discussed some things that creatives should keep in mind if they're ever feeling out of inspiration.
  • This amazing post by C.J. over @ Deadly Darlings discusses some issues with the current landscape of 'diverse books' in the literary world.

So that was my July! How was yours?

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First basic takeaway point today: I'm terrible at titling tag posts. I should just accept this and move on.

Second basic takeaway point: Alex McCarron, over at Third Star to the Right, tagged me for The Tag of Randomocity and is therefore a lovely person who should be showered with virtual fairy raspberries (since she likes raspberries so much). Not that she wasn't thoroughly lovely already, of course.

The rules

  • Paste the button onto your blog post.
  • Leave a new list of questions (or just pass on the question list you answered) and tag a few people of your random choice (and say why you tagged them, if you have time)! (Be original and nonsensical and disastrously random!)
  • Write down three facts about you – one of them is WRONG. Let your commenters guess in the comments which one is wrong (and tell them in the comments after a while)
  • Answer the questions of the person who tagged you – make it all super random and interesting.

Did you know?

(Of course, one of these is a heinous lie.)
  • I've been on three different splendiferous continents—Asia, North America, and Europe.
  • I will take any excuse to eat arugula. 
  • My heat tolerance is a pitiful thing that should not be tested.

Interrogation session

What is one food that you can (do?) eat mountains of because you love it so?

Oh my goodness. I absolutely ADORE food. Sadly, many of the foods I love involve soup and are therefore very difficult to make mountains out of. That said, I would totally eat mountains of sushi hopefully without getting sick in the process. Sushi is a wonderful thing that the world needs more of, no question.

If you were a Traveler Without Roots, would your home be a train car, an RV, a hot air balloon, a boat, or just a pack on your back? Or maybe another option completely?
I saw this question and was immediately going to say "hot air balloon", but then I realized that my fear of heights and tendency to get airsick would put a serious damper on my traveling experience.

So.

Unfortunately, a similar thing goes for the boat—I can get pretty seasick. And nothing but a pack on my back sounds terribly daring, but let's be real here: I can't survive without guaranteed shelter. So I think I'd go with a train car, because that sounds like the classy choice. (It would have to be a magical train car, though. You all know how these things are with me.)

Name a celebrity you wish you could spend one day with.  

VICTORIA SCHWAB.

(Technically not really a celebrity because she's an author, BUT.)

I WILL SAY THIS AGAIN: VICTORIA SCHWAB.

What fictional character’s house would you like to have as your own? 

Is this even a question?

I really want Bilbo Baggins's house. Yes, I said. I WANT BAG END (although scaled up so I'm not constantly hitting my head on that one chandelier that Gandalf has so much trouble with). It's such a comfortable, well-crafted, obviously much-loved house. Plus, so many reading nooks! And space for good food! Sounds perfect to me.

If you could take a class in ANYTHING what would it be? 

Hand lettering. 150%. I seriously want to learn hand lettering. Because look:
[via]
[via]
I need to be able to do this.

Name a childhood obsession. TV show, stuffed animal, book, food, pastime—anything. 

When I was younger, I was absolutely obsessed with fairytale-ish things. (I mean, I still am.) Magical escapes, plucky heroines, and fantasy adventures were my lifeblood. (I mean, they still are.) One thing in particular that I made my family watch over and over was the film Stardust.
also if you watch this movie and don't ship the ship you're  l y i n g
It's the perfect blend of action, strangeness, magic, and kindness that boosts my faith in humanity every time I watch it. The way the plotlines mix is wonderful, and overall it's just a really great film that I'll love forever.

Oddly enough, I still haven't read the book. I should get on that.

What do you think would be an awesome theme for a party? 

I really want to throw a Night Circus-themed party at some point in my life. Everything would be black and white and gray, with sudden bursts of red, and there'd be impeccable food. Everyone would be extremely well-dressed, and there would a replica of Herr Thiessen's fabulous clock somewhere.

This has to happen, okay? Someone figure it out STAT.

Have you been in any clubs/groups in your lifetime? 

Oh yes! First there's the obvious—I was in Speech and Debate this past school year and am planning to go back for another round once I get back to school. In fact, I'm also planning on adding two more school clubs to my schedule: Model UN and Mock Trial. In middle school, I also participated in MathCounts for two years (to this day, I'm still not sure how I ever landed a spot on the team EVER; my math skills are shaky at best).

Then there's friend things. I'm fortunate enough to have wonderful, genuinely caring, wickedly smart friends both on- and offline. My current circle of IRL friends is basically like one big nerd club. And of course, I can't forget ATTAC! Alyssa, Topaz, Taylor, and AnQi are some of the coolest and most talented writers/bloggers I've met, and I'm so glad I know them.

And lastly, writing things! It's my privilege to be a part of The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program's Class of 2015, as well as the mentor group over at the Glass Kite Anthology Summer Writing Studio (which we've dubbed the 'GKA FAMBAM').

PS: I'm also part of these Tumblr networks.

What’s something you have to buy all the time that you wish you could just have an endless supply of (something that’s always the same thing—no books or movies!)?

Endless supply of college ruled notebook paper = a thing I need in my life. Enough said.

What park (national/amusement/theme/etc) would you choose to visit? 

 Thing you should know about me: I loathe amusement parks because I'm terrified of roller coasters and other assorted park rides (heights + intense motion + that stone-drop feeling in your stomach? no thank you). I also don't love crowded places—case in point: Times Square was my least favorite part of New York City when I traveled there last year. So you're generally not going to find me in an amusement park or theme park by choice. I'd love to visit Glacier Bay instead. It's a national park and reserve in the state of Alaska that I once saw from the deck of a cruise ship but never got to properly step into, and what I did glimpse of it was absolutely breathtaking. I think I'd have a wonderful day there, armed with a phone camera, a notebook + pen, and some very warm and fluffy clothes.
it must be even more gorgeous in person. [via]

Spreading the love

I'm tagging (but do it only if you want to!): 

  • Morning (thanks for the shoutout in your last post + for being such an all-around lovely person!)
  • Rachana (thanks for being so incredibly supportive all the time!)
  • + you, because I want to thank YOU for reading all the way to the bottom of this post and I can't for the life of me think of more people to tag, which is horrendous of me.
I'll just pass along the questions above, because they're a pretty darn cool bunch of questions.

So what do you think? Was I appropriately random? Are there any answers of mine that you relate to?

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June always tends to be a rather lethargic month, but no matter, because lots of exciting things brightened this month for me!

On the blog

  • I shared some very exciting publication news—a poem of mine, "Still Life with Broken Hearts", was part of the second issue of -Ology Journal.
  • More publication news! My poem "Mouth" was in the third issue of Glass Kite Anthology. Both of these publications came out on the same day (which also happened to be my last day of school, so it was a great way to start my summer break off with a bang). 
  • My Fiction Friday feature became Weekend Wordfest, and I talked about Tumblr poets because Tumblr poets are amazing people. 
  • ...and even more publication news. My weird star-filled Rapunzel retelling found a home in the latest issue of Rose Red Review. 
  • Although I already posted about this bit of publication news back in November, I feel it's worth mentioning again, because my story "They Held Starlight" was released this month by Young Adult Review Network aka YARN! Also LOOK:
I'm not even going to pretend I didn't freak out when I learned this

  • I did Beautiful People again, this time focusing on everyone's favorite privileged dork, Charles Mareil! (Also, his parents.)

That one time I was offline *gasp*

  • This first week of June was the second-to-last week of my freshman year of high school, so naturally things were hectic as teachers realized they had procrastinated on assessing us all semester.
  • Cue WEEK OF DOOM. A brief recap of that week in particular:
    • On Tuesday, I gave my honors presentation for my literature class—comparing author's craft as it relates to theme in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (a text from class) as opposed to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (a text I chose). I think both books are very valuable contributions to the literary canon, but F451 is really misogynist, which makes me unable to love it. The Bell Jar, though—oh gosh, I think I've found a new author to add to my favorites list. Sylvia Plath's words are just gorgeous.
    • On Thursday, I presented for my health class (aka absolutely the most pointless class ever to sully my schedule), and I presented my final project for AP Statistics, which was a short animation film/parody of Harry Potter designed to show off a study + statistical inference that my group had conducted. 
    • On Friday, I had to wear a dress to school, which I haven't done in at least two years. This was because our world history class was presenting final research papers.
  • Then the last week of school, or actual finals week, rolled around. 
    • Cue WEEK OF NOTHING. I only had three actual finals to do—all in my easiest classes.
    • That'd be health, physics, and Japanese. 
    • But! In world history, I got to eat Chilean empanadas and drink mote con huesillo and listen to my world history teacher tell stories about living in Chile. It was great. (Also the empanadas and mote were DELICIOUS. Oh my goodness.)
  • So after that, my summer break started! It's been horribly delightfully uneventful so far.
  • This isn't exactly offline, but I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Serena @ Reading Over Sleeping and redesign her blog. I installed a responsive theme and did color/font/header customizations. I think the result wasn't too bad! (BTW, if you've got a Blogger blog and want a free responsive redesign, talk to me on Twitter @_christinaim or in the comments.)
  • The weather is so pretty and obliging outside. It's very suspicious, because this is the Pacific Northwest and the weather does not get so nice without an ulterior motive. 

I've been reading

  • All the Rage by Courtney Summers. One of the best books I've read all year.
  • The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, for school. I had some issues with the slightly stilted prose, portrayals of female characters, and slowness/loose ends of the plot, but otherwise it was a lovely, quiet, elegant read.
  • Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. OH MY GOODNESS CAN SIMON SPIER BE MY BEST FRIEND? ALSO: SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP.

PS: Remember, you can check out all my reads of 2015 here.

I've been watching

even the opening sequence is pretty, gosh
I'm still recovering from my severe post-The 100-finale show hangover, but I've found two shows this month that might help me in that process. First up is a wonderfully executed BBC period drama called The Paradise. It centers around the fictional first department store in England, called—you guessed it—the Paradise, and a country girl with big dreams who comes to work there.

Aforementioned 'country girl with big dreams' is Denise Lovett, and oh my goodness. I love her. The first thing I noticed about her was how earnest and good and helpful she was. She's willing to work hard to gain acceptance and success and independence, and she loves her job so, so much. I think this is the first period drama I've seen where the heroine works for a living and places her occupation above pretty much everything else. So that's really refreshing and lovely.
denise lovett: actual ray of sunshine
This show also has a really cool group of characters interacting, and I love that there are so many multifaceted, dynamic female characters who are driving a lot of the storyline. My only problem with the characters, I think, is in the male lead, Mr. Moray. He's honestly kind of a sexist blockhead, although I'm told he gets somewhat better.

But the costumes are brilliant. Apparently one of the same people who worked on the Wolf Hall costumes also worked on the costumes for The Paradise, and in my opinion, it shows. Everyone's clothes are just beautiful, especially with the colors in this show being the way they are.
Anyway, if you'd like to discuss, I've finished the first season. And, um, where is the fandom? (Please tell me there's a fandom.) SHOW YOURSELVES.
american history that's actually cool? yeah, i didn't believe it either
I came across AMC's Turn on Netflix—somehow the show is so underrated that I'd never heard of it before!—and immediately my interest was piqued by the premise. A show about George Washington's Revolutionary War spy ring aka one of the few actually interesting parts of American history? Sign me up.

I was captivated right away by the show's details and framing designs. The fonts used (no don't say anything, fonts are very important to me) are gorgeous, and the costumes actually seem somewhat accurate, which is very cool. And oh gosh, the music is flawless. But the most beautiful part of this? Check out the killer opening credits sequence (although warning for a bit of promotional gobbledygook at the end):



Anyway, it took me a little while to warm to the characters/story, but once I did, I couldn't get enough of them. The first character I loved? Predictably, the most important female character in the show, Anna Strong aka amazing brave reckless Patriot lady who takes no crap from men:
yes! you deserve a high five, anna strong!
But soon I discovered I liked the protagonist, too—Abraham Woodhull aka sneaky cabbage farmer who is actually kind of adorable sometimes and also wears lots of hats:
plus, he's super crafty and has the most precious facial expressions sometimes
Anyhow, the show has a great plotline and a very well-rounded cast of characters, in my opinion, so it's super, super cool if you like history and spies and things. Do check it out! I don't think it gets enough love. (And if you'd like to discuss in the comments, please know I'm not even through the first season yet, so no spoilers please!)
ahhhh
I went to the movie theater to go see Pixar's new film Inside Out! This movie was adorable and incredibly inventive—one of the most ingenious animated films I've seen in a while. Plus, the characters are all so precious, and Sadness is pretty much me IRL.


Help, someone teach me how to Instagram

Click each image to go to full-size!
i actually cooked a thing. (my mom helped, naturally.) to my surprise, it tasted fabulous.
i participated in a book photography challenge. you might remember this book from the first-ever #litlove.
poetry is hard, pretty much.

Links of interest


So we're halfway through the year already! How have you all been doing? Are you glad it's finally summer (winter for my friends on the other half of the globe)?

PS: Watch this space. I've got something extra-special planned for tomorrow to kick off July. Writer friends, you'll love it. 
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Oh gosh, where did May go? Here's a brief recap, I guess!

on the blog

  • For my second-ever Scribbler School post, I talked about how to make your names work for your story.
  • I participated in the third round of #LitLove (which is an Awesome Thing that I do with the ATTAC gang), highlighting William Shakespeare and one of my favorites of his plays: Othello.
  • I did Beautiful People again because it's fun and emotionally compromising. This time, I spotlighted Rowen Raveneye and Yvette Scarleigh.
  • I featured Maggie Stiefvater's #twitterfiction for the fifteenth edition of Fiction Friday.

that one time I was offline *gasp*

  • School is vaguely tolerable, if only because my history class is really interesting.
  • I came in second at a state-level piano scholarship competition (on Mother's Day, no less), which was very cool and a wonderful surprise.
  • I took my first (and hopefully last) AP exam of high school, for AP Statistics, which is the only AP class my normally-IB school offers. I think I didn't do too badly, shockingly enough.
  • Toward the middle of the month, I came down with a debilitating cough/cold/generally gross thing. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly pleased about my immune system's decision to take a sudden holiday.
  • I had a very relaxing and much-needed four-day Memorial Day weekend.
  • During that weekend, I founded out I'd been admitted into The Adroit Journal's 2015 Summer Mentorship Program! (I saw the email and suddenly WHAT WAS AIR.) This is a summer-long writing mentorship for high school writers brought into being by the indomitable Peter LaBerge and his wickedly talented Adroit staff. So far the experience has been an absolute dream, and I can't wait to get into the heart of the program this summer—I'm being mentored by 2013 National Student Poet Aline Dolinh, whose work I've admired for ages (there is so much caps and excitement that I'm barely containing here).
(Yes, this is what that tweet was about.)

  • Actually, a lot of poetry-related happenings went down this month.
  • I got a really great score on the ACT Plan, which was great because I was pretty certain I'd screwed up that test. (For all you non-American friends *waves*, the ACT is one of the standardized tests that we can take in America to get into college, kind of like the SAT, and the ACT Plan is like an ACT prep test administered to high school sophomores—except when you're like my nerd friends and me and you take it as a freshman.)
  • I was also given an honorable mention for outstanding ninth grade math (??? I'm honestly terrible at math) student at my school's academic awards. I'm pretty sure those are decided by teacher recommendations, and I wasn't even aware that my math teacher noticed me, so that was very cool.


I've been reading

  • The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker, which was pretty enjoyable while I was reading it, but didn't hold up in retrospect (also some aspects of the book hurt my feminist heart in a big way).

I've been watching

Wolf Hall ended and I didn't know what to do with myself. The answer turned out to be WATCH MORE THINGS.

these cw poster things always look so absurdly contrived; they make me laugh
You probably know about how The 100 became one of my newest TV obsessions last month. So it's no surprise that I dove headfirst into season 2 both terrified and thrilled to be starting it.

 IT'S EVEN BETTER. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. I said last month that The 100 was everything I never knew I wanted, and that assessment held true in this second season. This is sci-fi at its grittiest and fiercest—so, thoroughly out of my comfort zone. It's something I never would've picked up on my own but am so glad I did (thanks, Tumblr). The tension and stakes are ramped up about 532%, the worldbuilding just gets richer and richer, the moral dilemmas are more thorny and heart-wrenching than ever, and the characters have come so far in their development it's just mind-blowing. Bonus points for diversity (!!!) and empowered girls (!!!) and combinations of the two (!!!!!!).

 Spotlight of some of my favorite aspects of this season:
if you hurt raven reyes i will probably fight you fyi
this ship is everything? basically yes + look octavia's amazing
i should start a monty green appreciation campaign
you know lexa i love you as a character but sometimes just LEXA NO STOP
UPDATE:
i will go down with this ship, no regrets
Something that a lot of people seem to not know about me is that I sometimes watch and fangirl over anime. I'm nowhere near as hardcore as a lot of anime lovers, but I do really enjoy anime when I delve into it. This month I started Sword Art Online, which is a fast-paced, engaging look into the world of virtual reality video games.

 I've mainly stuck around because a) sword fight scenes are fun fun fun, b) the plot advances very quickly and I love it, c) the premise is ridiculous but the execution is unexpectedly awesome, and d) the characters are so lovable (plus character dynamics are so wonderful, especially the OTP I indicated above). The only thing I'd like to ask for from SAO is some deeper exploration of the moral issues that come up both inside and outside the games—I've yet to see the moral complexity that I crave from what is otherwise a really great anime (and so great for binging, OMG).
ahhhhhh
I'd been absolutely dying to watch The Theory of Everything ever since I heard it had been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and had gotten Eddie Redmayne the Oscar for Best Actor. (I'd only seen Eddie in Les Mis before that—I think he's adorable and a pretty good actor, but I didn't know if his performance could really hold up.) So when my mother rented the Blu-ray of course I was excited.

The film promised one of my favorite things: an intersection between love and science and history. Also Stephen Hawking. HOW COOL. And I wasn't disappointed! Aesthetically speaking, it's gorgeously done. Emotionally speaking, it's gorgeously done. The performances by Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones were A+ (these two dorks being dorks together in the beginning were so perfect I could cry), the film score was super nice, and I came away with renewed faith in humanity, which is always something I need a boost in anyway. I'd definitely recommend this.

(I still don't think this tops The Imitation Game but hey! I'm slightly aggressively biased in favor of anything Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley do, so.)

help, someone teach me how to Instagram

Click each image to get to full-size!

very pretty arc of virginia boecker's the witch hunter
a walk so lovely i thought i was in fairyland

links of interest


So that was my May! How was yours?

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