pasta nite and other ventures

hey blog sorry for the radio silence (10 days) and I don't even know what i have been doing. actually i remember now. I went to Ohio.. taste of that Midwest emo.. 

One picture to sum up that trip. very chill though, 8 hours there and 8 hours back. did my greek homework in a dark car. listened to my mom's playlist and realized we have very similar music taste (indulge in 2010s indie rock). before the trip i finished a song with my side project girl (check the projects page :) but first we ate deli sandwich dinner next to subway tracks aka my favorite spot in the neighborhood. we made rootbeer floats with little haagen-dazs pints. here are some pics of that moment, mostly the trains because its too dark for anything else

our song was about trains so it was very fitting.. here's a verse for fun

and i'm sixty bucks down

can you tell i'm new to town

at the station (at the station)

anyways one thing that i have actually been working on was this cute video for my editing internship! idk if i can link it but i will try. I think i am going to start posting on youtube just for fun under the same title sooooo let me plug my channel

@head-robot

but I don't have the heart to post yet and also i am really scared of my friends finding this blog (they can see the channel though i don't care). and by friends I mean friend (singular) because only one friend knows about this blog and she does beg me for the URL. so right now this video will live on this site. i keep giving more and more information about myself but like who cares ... i guess I just liked the anonymity because it eliminated the risk of anyone taking this deep of a look into my mind... but this is good, i can't stay like this forever... its called pasta nite

i love making videos :) am I gonna be a double threat of blogger and vlogger?? stick around and find out. one day I will even make a short film that is fictional not documentary style but that requires a story, a script, multiple cameras, and better cameras, and mics and stuff but I will do it. I believe the first step to becoming a director is directing. i really really really want to direct a photo shoot before school starts. I always have wanted to shoot something actually stylized and I recently realized while I was in Cleveland, Ohio that nothing is stopping me. here's what I need:

a good camera - i want to use my sony dslr a100 but i need to learn more about the camera first

a vision - tonight I shall make a pinterest board (updates coming)

a model - i will probably use one of my friends but they need to do everything i tell them to and understand the vision

editing software - i need something better than the iphone photos editing so maybe photoshop? i used adobe premiere and maybe the subscription tracks over?? maybe free trial...

equipment? - do i need lighting and stuff!! time will tell

hopefully I can do this within the next week but... yeah we'll see. i also need to write half a research paper and a personal statement draft! progress has been made slowly but surely. but 7 days is a lot of time. and i kind of have no commitments so let me go crazy. the night is still young (11:35 pm) and i pinterest is calling me... if i make another post in 2 hours don't be surprised.

august overwhelms

as the summer wraps up, i have no time but also too much, and i feel like I'm drowning in everything i have dedicated myself to. i will have a full day with no plans, and knowing all the things i could (and have to) do, my mind starts whirring like a dell laptop downloading minecraft and my head blows up and then i do none of my things. not only do i need to do a 1500-word research paper draft, a 650-word personal essay draft, my greek summer homework, and edit a video for my internship,,, but i also have tried so many new things this summer and i want to do all of them all the time too! 

i made this post specifically to talk about all the media i have been meaning to absorb lately because I can't really bring myself to do it for some reason. i think I am just like,,, tired and overwhelmed, and all i can do is mindlessly watch Gossip Girl instead of doing all the things i want. today (aug 18) was especially hard because i awoke to a pounding and unsuspecting headache that distracted me from everything productive I could've done. I mostly just prepared food that didn't require an oven, not because i like cheffing it up but because I like chopping vegetables. the sound of a knife hitting the cutting board feeds me enough. anyways on to the point of this post. with pictures from pinterest so its not just a wall of text.

however as i began to write my lists of media, they sounded more like this:

"Movies:

the only movies I have watched this summer were on the 14 hour flights to and from japan. last summer i would watch like 8 movies a week (i find myself comparing this summer to last summer). some of the movies I want to watch most are..."

notice how idgaf about the movies and more about myself and my own problems! i think part of the problem here is that i am letting my summers lie back to back when they are entirely actually separate entities with their own thoughts and feelings. i think about how last summer i hung out with my best friend at least 3 times a week and this summer have seen that girl twice. i think about how i had enough pictures to fill gigabytes and gigabytes of storage, and this summer i can keep them all in a singular google drive folder. and as the weeks in august dwindle i wonder about how i have used summer this time around. 

ultimately, i am okay with this summer. this year i realized how perfectly placed my birthday is-- right in the middle of summer, the cranny between july and august, allowing me to live half of my summer as a sixteen year old and the other half as a seventeen year old. these halves fell very differently, and as I live through the second half I can't remember what it felt like to be in the first. and although I said i am overwhelmed, i mostly feel at peace. i feel like i am running to myself, and not from myself. i feel this intricately crafted solitude to be helpful, i feel myself being colored in. more on that later. but anyways, being submerged is mostly a good thing. I believe the worst thing that can happen is to be bored. and there are worst things to be overwhelmed with, way worse than writing essays and wanting to read too many books. even as I type this out I think: why didn't I just do that today?

maybe tomorrow. I say that all the time. and I am stuck in this perpetual motion of I have no time (2 weeks) and so much time (2 weeks). not to mention that I have the rest of my life to play with all the hobbies I've picked up, even if the next few months are going to be busy. i might just be typing all of this stuff up because I have not been on the grind the past couple days and I am feeling all crunched up. maybe if i write my schedule on a website I will follow it... here are my plans for tomorrow:

wake up at 9am

read on the subway

volunteer at the food pantry from 1030 to 2

eat lunch in the area

go home 

now we have a little choose-your-own-adventure because these things do not have an order to them

1. write the introduction to my research paper

2. edit the interview footage i took

3. send my portfolio to the organization I'm interviewing for

then finish off the night with a movie, or gossip girl, or i could finally finish one of those WIP songs. maybe even dump my brains out here again. i have more to say about all that media i was gonna talk about. 

so i end this long typing session with this: i love Gravity Falls. i really want to rewatch it in its entirety because of all the book of bill stuff and new lore dropping. that show is summer in a bottle, it reminds me of being thirteen and alone. those characters are like distant cousins and i want the family reunion. i always come back to you, escapism. but I guess that's the point. there's always something to run from.

comic relief

I actually have something robot related today for you, my club!

today I was bored. the end of summer is almost here and i feel like nothing has happened because of days like today. because nothing was happening. I bought pizza. I played Everything Stays (from adventure time) on bass and Misses (by dominic fike) on guitar. and I thought about the comic strips I drew as a child. 

this idea has been marinating in my brain for like 2 days right now. the vision was a boy and a robot. the boy was burning ants with a magnifying glass. then the robot zaps the ants with his laser eyes. and then the boy looks back to the robot and says something like "show off  >:/"

you see, i was just going to draw the comic strip and be done there. but i started to get excited. and i started to think about the story and the characters and their origins and how i could not only have one of my favorite things (robots) with one of my other favorite things (the classical world)!!! and how beautiful the blend of ultramodern technology and classical technology could be!!! and so i began...

The Robot: MDM03/Tris

the robot is was made in a lab in the year 2506 AD as a weapon for war but he refused to be a killing machine and he escaped through a secret government prototype time machine and ended up in Hellenistic Syracuse! his model name was MDM03 (Mass Destruction Mechanoid 03) but the boy who finds him calls him Tris (τρῐ́ς) because of the 3. 

The Greek Boy: ???

he is from Syracuse circa Hellenistic period and he is an engineer. he was born without only one whole arm, so even though he's 15 years old he is not training to be a warrior. instead, he is training to be a protégé of Archimedes, the great Syracusan engineer!! if only he could get his attention.. when he finds Tris he has to choose between greatness and a true friend?? 

the Boy has no name yet. and also his relationship with Tris has not been fully fleshed out. I don't know if I want the Boy to be like, protecting Tris from Hiero or Hieronymus (tyrants of Syracuse), or like plotting to use Tris so he can stand out to his idol Archimedes. Do i want the Boy to have this internal battle or just be morally gray or be a total sweetheart or what!!! the storyline has not been filled out bc i wasn't planning on writing a graphic novel or anything. i guess i know why people make these OCs (original characters) and give them backstories and whatnot. i will write the actual comic in a couple days i swear. but i really like this.

I listed the names in the image but the main contenders are Hylas, Nikomachus, and Androkles. I want something very Greek but also cute. i will decide as the days come. my working title for the comic strip is Archimedes' Screw just because it sounds cool but something like Hylas and the Robot or Bots in Syracuse is fun. i could write a lot more about my ideas but they are all in the pictures so why restate it all.

as a child I had a ton of comic series. my favorite followed 2 alien blobs named Evan and Kylo who got into all kinds of trouble. another was about an octuplet of 8 eggs, the Eggtuplets, named after all the different ways to serve an egg (Omelet, Poachy, Sunny, Scrambles, FryFry, Yolker, Deviled, and Benny). i even wrote a comic about my own family on a treasure hunt for canola oil because we always used it to make brownies and the grocery store ran out of it. i think we all should be making comics casually in this way. i will start doing this very soon, i say as i write an entire plotline and universe for a Syracusan boy and a robot from the future.

i love robots and I love classical history. this may be my new passion project.

о̄hara museum in kurashiki

trying to be brief for once. here are paintings i loved in the Ōhara museum in Kurashiki, Okayama. i got int trouble for taking a picture of one of the paintings so most of these i had to remember by taking a picture of the placard or writing it down in my notes app. i present you:

Hector and Andromache by Giorgio de Chirico

(the illiad plus mechanical metaphysical elements? this painting was basically made for me)

The Woodcutter by Ferdinand Hodler

(this guy basically only paints lumberjacks for some reason)

Scene in the Deep Sea by Harue Koga

From Now On by Mizuno Rina

Before the Ball by Tsuguhara Foujita

??? by Paul Serusier

??? by Koide Narashige (i think)

Clayey Animal from the Later Han Dynasty

there was a painting called The Day My Son Yo Died in English that I adored but i didn't take a picture of it or note the artists name. I can't find it anywhere online. one day i will find it. all this shit took me like 45 minutes to put together because the о̄hara museum has no website!!!!! and all the english names are different than the actual names so i had to do a lot of reverse image searching via pinterest. i dont even know the names of 2 of these paintings. my favorite by far was Hector and Andromache though. i love mythological art. 

in conclusion what a hidden gem of a museum that deserves more attention. this museum had a ton of picassos and monets as well, all hidden away in the okayama prefecture. a good place to spend your birthday ;]

summer song - jackalope

hey i really love my blog. so I should post on it right? yeah i know. but this summer is swallowing me whole. it is rushing over me like a wave that i refuse to dive through. in general i don't know how to feel about august yet. july passed so slowly, everyday was holepunched. but august is quick. so far. i think i am okay with this. 

i think this is because i turned 17 at the very end of july. 17 is so different and I love it. that is like a whole different post. this post was meant for the song I wrote at the beginning of july. i think i may have wrote it with someone in mind but that person no longer matters to me! also for another blog post. but I love this song a lot. it is played with only fingerpicking like 2 chords but it is so sweet. its called "jackalope" right now but i am open to changing it. i hope to record it and post it on my bandcamp (also called robotics club). 

summer sinks in 

like a dragonfly bite

don’t know why it hurts so bad

skin pierces

it’s just a small thing

but get used to

it being around

summer crawls in 

like a baby bear

it walks on all fours

time will pass and

it will mature

get on two legs and roar

summer seethes

like a leech

stuck to your leg

from the pond

scrape it off

with a playing card

never knew you needed

the six of hearts

summer swarms

like a cicada

every 17 years

i think it’s time for the brood

but don’t be scared i got you

we will stay inside together

summer hides away

like a jackalope

was it all even real

should i mount it on my wall

so big yet so small

let it return to the wild

i think this song aged really well for how my summer is going. i wrote it on july 2nd and its now august 8th. this summer has been kind of transformative yet i am the exact same. i feel like it is a return to my old self. i turned 17 but i also turned 13. i am excited to meet myself for the rest of this summer. but I also want this summer to end immediately and start my senior year already. i think this summer might be the perfect length actually (excluding for my summer homework). in conclusion i have a lot of feelings about these 2 months. i hope they only get richer and more complicated.

i have so much to blog about. all 400 pictures from japan. the 30 page scrapbook i started in tokyo and finished in my bedroom. my other feelings about 17. my feelings about him. and her. and them all. the book I've been reading, Severance by Ling Ma. my new obsession with Cansei de Ser Sexy. the other songs I've written. but I don't know if I will get to it because I'm binging Gossip Girl. and i'm about to binge the new season of the Umbrella Academy. i think i need to just blog more casually. write more reviews of mundane things like the coffees I try and the days I live and the youtube videos I watch. i want to start reading magazines and comics and more books please!

however how much of this will actually happen. because i have to write 2 huge essays this summer. and translate a lot of greek. and edit a documentary under my film internship. and volunteer at the food pantry in the mornings. and apply to colleges :[ I have approximately 27 days left to do all of that (fuck i should not have counted that up). yet after all of that i am excited. i am excited for those 27 days. i am excited for senior year. i am excited to live out this 18th year of my life. and i am excited to blog all about it i hope.

for realz I am going to try to post casually. the dude who inspired me to make this blog literally writes a singular paragraph or posts a painting he likes or whatever. im actually gonna do that right after i press publish on this one because I saw some real cool shit in okayama. but i also love to pour my brainz out and write 6 paragraphs that only sort of tie together. so I guess this post is worth like 4 of that dude's posts!

okay I think i am done with this one. let me just add oneeeeee little picture to top it off.

the summer vibes in kyoto are quite strong.

hiatus over.. so much soon

 hi club! i am back!

a lot has happened. i went to japan. i turned 17 (age reveal). i got my heart broken. and i got a new computer!!!

i have so so so much to share and so so much of august to do it for you. right now the new computer is still adjusting and i am trying to upload all eleven thousand images from my old computer because I simply cannot part with them but it is a struggle.

i have a ton of pics, stories, music, and art to post on here. i also feel like i need to make up for the hiatus so i am probably gonna be spamming. i haven't uploaded the japan flicks yet because i dont know if my new computer (the bloginator 3000) can handle that as of right now. but i am beyond excited for them.

i leave you with a new sotw and a picture of my new laptop wallpaper

idk why but i've had a thing for knights lately (maybe because they look like robots?)

so much to see soon. i missed my club