In addition to my updated Italy blog posts, my trip to Greece in Summer 2007 is now also completely updated and online!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
July 4th!
This is the 3rd summer I’ve been in Boston, and thus my 3rd time seeing the Boston Pops/Fireworks July 4th spectacular! The fireworks are shot off a barge sitting in the middle of the Charles River between the Longfellow and Mass Ave bridge. The first time I stood on the Mass Ave bridge, which is closed off to traffic for the holiday, craned my neck up, and watched the display. The second time, I went to a party and stood on a rooftop in Boston, again craning my neck up to look at the explosions in the sky. This time was going to be different.
My friend Nisha has taken up kayaking recently and suggested that we kayak on the Charles River and watch the fireworks from there! I’ve been kayaking a few times, and agreed that sounded like a fun plan.
Kayaking Nisha with the Boston skyline in the background.
21 minutes later we turned around and paddled back upriver. We had 1.5 hours to make it back to the rental location. By this point, we were both getting tired, were being knocked around by the ‘interesting’ wakes of boats also heading back home. One time I turned around and there was a huge boat in back of Nisha’s relatively tiny kayak blowing its horn at her. It was a bit scary to be on the river in the dark with the possibility of getting run over by large boats. All we had signaling our presence was 4 glow sticks, 2 very bright ones, and 2 very weak ones. About an hour and 15 minutes later we made it back to the the dock, and hobbled our way back to the car. I was a long and tiring journey, but I’m glad I did it!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Updated posts
My summer in Italy is updated with double the # of posts from before and more pictures!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A Dance party and The Zoo
After enjoying a final dinner with Katy before she headed off to Utah, we stopped by the City of Cambridge’s Dance Party. Instead of the usual cars and busses plodding along Mass Ave, a section of the street in front of city hall was blocked off and full of hundreds, thousands? of people dancing in the street. The music reminded me of bat mitzvah music-there was lots of music I had never heard before, songs that tell you exactly how to dance in case you’re challenged in that area, and lots of Michael Jackson music of course earlier in the evening. It was a very happy, casual, and cute atmosphere since there were adults, families, and kids just dancing without a care in the world, doing their own thing.
On Saturday, I headed down to the Roger Williams Zoo to attend a fantastic event called Zoobilee: feast with the beasts. This is an annual fundraiser where people pay to sample gourmet food from local restaurants while also getting to look at the zoo animals. There was so much delicious food – great steak, seafood, and dessert…and beyond. After stuffing myself last night, I just finally regained my desire to eat again.
Another highlight was that I finally got to see the Zoo’s giant anteater that Sam told me about 3 years ago!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Fun weekend
This weekend, my friend Nisha came up from New York to visit me in Boston. Nisha and I both studied Environment Engineering at MIT, and two years ago were awesome flat roommates during our summer internships in Venice. This weekend was especially fun because Nisha introduced me to places/activites in Boston and Cambridge I had never been to/done before!
On Friday, we went to Central Kitchen for dinner, grabbed quick drinks at the Enormous Room, and then headed to The Beehive for some jazz and dessert. To cap off the night we then went dancing at Middlesex. The food at Central Kitchen was delicious and the ambiance at Beehive was different, funky, yet classy.
On Saturday, we went to Back Bay Yoga and took a ‘hot’ yoga class. I’ve taken yoga classes before but never with the added heat element. I didn’t enjoy sweating and sliding around on my mat so much, so I think I’ll stick to yoga outside of hot rooms. After that we headed to the Comcast Center outside of Boston for the No Doubt concert! See the previous post for more details on that.
On Sunday, we enjoyed a final brunch in Beacon Hill at the Beacon Hill Bistro. We tried to order mimosas, but learned that you can’t drink before 11am on Sundays in Boston!
Monday, June 22, 2009
No Doubt Concert!
Saturday night, Nisha and I went to the absolutely amazing No Doubt concert. I’ve actually wanted to see No Doubt in concert for over 5 years but they’ve been off doing side projects until this reunion. No Doubt is among both of our favorite bands, and we had been pumped for this event since buying our tickets months ago. We had good seats and high hopes, and the concert did not disappoint! No Doubt had 2 good openings acts that were high energy and got the crowd excited – Janelle Monae and Paramore, both of whom I plan to listen to more. Finally No Doubt came onstage and busted out a lot of good songs from Tragic Kingdom, and their hits from more recent cds.
I was impressed by the concert as a whole, but also:
- Gwen’s live voice
- Gwen’s level of fitness despite being almost 40 with 2 kids
- Tony connecting with the crowd on our side
- The back screen always had cools visuals relating to the songs
- Gwen and Tony jamming and playing off one another’s vibe, which there are several pictures of below
Afterwards, I just wanted to go to another one of their concerts!
I was determined to get good pictures from this concert, so I took over 200 photos- I included some of my favorites in the different lighting schemes below!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Summer of Art!
This summer I am taking 2 courses at MassArt and 2 classes at the Student Art Association at MIT. I used to love art camp as a kid, and while this is different, it’s still a refreshing and relaxing change from MIT!
@MassArt
Drawing for Designers – We learn how to communicate our ideas via drawing techniques. I’ve always liked to draw but never had any sort of formal training. At first I wasn’t very good relative to the other students, but I am definitely improving! I can draw objects in 1 point and 2 point perspective, know how to use line weights to make an object look 3D, and learning more everyday! I feel like I use my hand muscles to write or draw a lot less nowadays since everything in my life seems to be computerized which is a shame.
Intro to Industrial Design – Come up with a pressure or vacuum-formed plastic container. Sketch it, render it, and then create it.
We also got to play with this amazing tablets where you draw on the screen and you can apply all these amazing techniques. I want one of these someday: Cintiq 21UX. http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/cintiq-21ux.php
@SAA at MIT
Watercolor – Just had first class, went over some basic stroke techniques. This painting wasn’t supposed to be anything but ended up looking like trees with birds on the vines.
Chinese Brush Painting –This class requires a lot of patience and fine stroke technique. I wish I had a better Chinese background to understand the characters meaning beyond a series of elegant strokes.
At the Range
Yesterday for the first time in a long time I went to the driving range. My lil lil Stephanie and I plan to go to the range every Wednesday to improve our golf skills. My first few swings were straight and good distance-wise, just like the good old days! However, after that my swing crumbled into bad habits. With our skills, we attracted the attention of two young kids who refused to let their dad take them away until we hit a good shot…with the pressure on, that took a while. We also had to pause for a short while as a family of ducks waddled their way across the range.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Commencement
After 5 years at MIT, I am now officially an alum of the institute.
Things I liked about commencement:
- The traditional feel of the procession and ceremony
- Taking pictures
- Entering Killian Court and being mobbed by a tunnel of paparazzi, aka rabid parents
- Being amused by the length of my robe, while most other gown came down to mid-calf level or below, mine was about knee-length
- As I walked from my apartment to campus many people congratulated me, even the homeless people were excited
- Celebrating with friends and family
- Getting my diploma!
Random Pics off my old computer
My primary laptop is currently angry at me and non-functional, so in the meantime I am using my old laptop that has problems of its own. It's a bit slow, but the bigger issue is that the screen is very finicky. If I type too vigorously or insert a CD into the drive that vibrates the screen then it turns into a beautiful yet unreadable mess of colors. For the most part however, I have been only checking my email on campus once a day for the past few days. It's actually quite refreshing to be free of the internet leash, although frustrating when I can't easily look information up.
On the other hand, using this older laptop has allowed me to look at some old photos I haven't looked at in a while! Esther left these cookies for me on my window sill back when I lived on the first floor of East Campus.
Oh Boston, you can be so beautiful when you aren't being
temperamental.
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