/>“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true.
You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep the dreamers from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists? Well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.” —Cameron Tucker
There is something to be said about old habits dying hard, even when you’re still inching away from the trough of what promises to be a very high peak with something called “your life.” In terms of my life, I talk specifically about thinking for a very long time that I need to develop thick skin.
It was recently that I found out all of my efforts toward developing thick skin may have been a big waste of my time and, actually, worked against me. I’ve always been that girl who hung out with the boys, since I was a tiny kindergartner to now as a young professional, giving as many insults and comebacks as I was taking; often trying to beat them to the punch and say insults about myself first. I learned that the best defense is a better defense. When someone tries to say something nice about me, I don’t believe them or don’t accept the compliment because of how I’ve always tried to protect myself to be one of the boys. What I’ve found recently was that as much as I always wanted to be the kind of girl who can roll with the punches and give plenty of my own, I’m learning now (as if it wasn’t any obvious) that I am still a girl. I am sensitive. I am fragile. And, I am more than perfectly okay with it.
The thing with fragility is the opportunity to become vulnerable. I don’t know who came up with the bright idea that vulnerability is a bad thing. The way I see it, vulnerability gives you a chance to open yourself up, and eventually open up ones you’ve been vulnerable toward to, too. And that is the key to gaining a whole lot more out of relationships with others than witty banter (which is always fun, too). Letting my guard down toward any individual is a real gauge of how I see my relationship with him or her.
The fact of the matter right now is that I have let my guard down, and I hope the right person realizes it, and realizes that it is the rawest form of me. Old habit thrown out the window.
From EWF to Sade, from a lopsided night of basketball shooting contests to lopsided nights of billiards, from past trips to future trips, from staying in to staying by my side when I absolutely needed you: you are important to me, and I hope I am to you.
It’s mind-boggling to realize the effects one person has another. Good or bad, it happens. You don’t want to realize it when it’s bad, but you can’t believe it when it’s good. In the long run, you just come to terms that you’ve grown from it, and that’s the real gift.
I’m very aware of how I handle situations. I can never keep the good of what’s going on in my life to myself, but always bottle up all the bad. This post is no different. This is not something I expect people to read on their dashboards; please breeze right through it, and claire-bear with me as I take the time to write about the effects of someone who very quickly became important to me.
To you:
- Thank you for helping me rediscover my love for music.
- Thank you for contributing to getting me into bike riding.
- Thank you for not laughing at me when I try to sing to you, and for singing back when you’ve had a little to drink.
- Thank you for being impressed with my drinking (when I used to be so much better).
- Thank you for waiting to hang out with me at ungodly hours until I got out of the office during tax season.
- Thank you for helping me get through my first tax season.
- Thank you for letting me share stupid facts about anything with you, and making it seem like it’s actually interesting.
- Thank you for embracing the fact that I like to eat.
- Thank you for getting to know about my friends.
- Thank you for watching me play basketball.
- Thank you for watching me bowl.
- Thank you for being as willing as I am to try new things.
- Thank you for letting me know that I have at least one person to say “good morning” to.
- Thank you for taking care of me when I needed to be taken care of, but thank you for backing off when I asked you to.
- Thank you for always making sure I get home safely.
- Finally, thank you for every moment.
“Stay up late: wonderful things happen when you’ve been up too long, gone too far, and you don’t realize a minute has passed by.”
to handlebar highways
Ride a Bike.
The assignment: create a remix video displaying a visual argument centered around Los Angeles. Having recently started going on late night bicycle rides through downtown, I had some friends cameo to help me out. I used a number of different videos to create this edit- the dominant one being “Kings and Queens” by 30 Seconds to Mars. Special thanks to the Take 5 Crew!
The video takes you through a brief history of transportation within LA, exposing how automobile companies built over the Red Car System. It ends with an article, featured in GOOD Magazine, about a proposal made by the LA Bike Working Group. Check it out: labikeplan.com/ index.html
I put together this video for my final project in Visual Comm. It was my first time using iMovie, so at first it SUCKED. But after I got used all the buttons, it actually ended up being kinda fun. The video took me a few days to make- I think there are about 12 different Youtube + Vimeo clips in there and I’m working on putting together the full credits on the Vimeo page. Shout-outs to my friends/family, Alan, Claire, and Sarah, for letting me borrow their voices! I was pretty happy with it in the end and I hope you are too!
My professor emailed me after class and told me she was going to show it to her friend who worked for the LA Bicycle Coalition- hopefully I’ll get some positive feedback! Keep ya updated
I’m not saying this because he is one of my best friends. I’m not saying this because bike riding with the Take 5 crew was some of the best times I’ve had even if we’ve only done it a couple of times. I’m not saying this because I want a couple of times to become every Wednesday night for the rest of my life. But this video— what it stands for, how it was made, who made it, where it depicts, and most especially WHY it was made — is one of the best video final projects I’ve seen come out of a college class, and I’m honored to be a part of it. Congrats, Kevs! You ended college with a BIKE… err, I mean BANG!
When I was in high school, Jamba Juice used to be my crack, my energy drink, my get-it-any-chance-I-got drink. I was as excited to hear that there was a “secret menu” at my favorite smoothie spot as I was when I heard about In-N-Out’s. However, I did NOT know just how many different drinks were on it.
How have I only tried 3 of these flavors and heard of 5? On the quest to try all of these. 39 flavors on their secret menu?! Crazy.
Employees are trained to know how to make all of these drinks. The reason they’re not on the menu is because there is no nutritional value in any of these: recipe list mostly consisting of lots and lots of sorbets. The menu is the epitome of “it’s so bad, it’s good!”
