playing to the audience

Tonight, I performed at my school's Classical Me, a biannual concert for musicians at my high school! My private teacher doesn't organize recitals, so it's really nice to have a regular performance that isn't as stressful as auditions and helps me practice performing. The acoustics in the church are amazing, so it's a great place to perform and listen to other musicians! To read more about Classical Me and watch one of my performances from last year, click here.

I played Meditation from the opera Thais, by Jules Massenet. I love this piece; it's so beautiful and expressive. Here is a video of the performance:

I was fortunate to have my friend Hanalei accompany me! She's an amazing pianist! She organizes a music group at my school called Songs For Seniors that performs at senior homes around the county. We have concerts every month, and it's so much fun! It's really rewarding to see the residents enjoying the music and tapping along.

Our first performance of the school year was at The Village at Rockville in November. The person at the front desk asked us if we were all from the same family... They must not see many Asians. Or maybe all Asians look alike when holding string instruments.

The January performance was at the Brooke Grove Retirement Village. There was a good crowd of residents and their families. Later, I found out that one resident's family member once taught music. It was nice to be appreciated by someone who knew about music, and it might have made up for the fact that one resident asked me what instrument I play right after the performance.

This month, we performed at Sunrise at Fox Hills in February. The ambiance was a combination of a 4-star hotel and a minimum security prison. It was impossible to get to the concert room without a security escort! All the electronic locks were designed to keep residents from wandering out, but also to keep late musicians from getting to the concert.

that's a wrap

One of my recent hobbies has been making jewelry with wire. I made some simple jewelry when I was younger, but now I'm getting into more intricate and complex designs. They all include a lot of wire wrapping which is very time-consuming and often makes my fingers sore. But, I love jewelry-making because I'm always proud of my work and homemade jewelry makes great presents for my friends and family! Here are some of the pieces I have made:

This wrapped barbell bracelet was my first complex piece of jewelry, with each barbell link wrapped with wire and connected with figure eights. I love to wear it!

 

 


I used simple loops and wraps to create this adjustable ring. I made one for me and my sister.

I made these earrings as a birthday gift for my mom. Like the barbell bracelet, these also required a lot of wire wrapping for each earring. I love the effect of the hollow compartments.

monster on the horizon

It's winter break! After four months of slaving away in school, we finally made it! Ella and I are always determined to make the most of our breaks by doing "something fun" every day, whatever that means. Our many activities during school breaks and weekends include (but are definitely not limited to) bowling, ice skating, mini-golfing, rock climbing, swimming, pottery painting, and, much to our parents' dismay, shopping.

On Saturday, we decided to do some art! I painted a cup, and Ella made a fused glass plate and painted an ornament. Because of my meticulous painting style, pottery painting is always a big time commitment, but this was an extreme case. This was probably the longest I have ever spent something... It took about six hours over the course of two days!

I think I may have been too ambitious with my design: a sky background, clouds, an airplane with a "BEATRIZ" banner, extremely detailed buildings, and an adorable monster! The most time consuming part was definitely the buildings. I first painted three coats of light purple and three coats of light gray, waiting for each coat to dry in between. Then, it took me forever to scratch out the windows and doors on each building. Here are pictures of my piece from all angles before it was fired in the kiln. You might notice an advertisement for The Trizzle on one of the buildings!

Ella did a fused art project. She glued a bunch of small pieces of colored glass onto a large glass square to make a checkered rainbow pattern. When they fired the piece, they made it into a plate by folding the sides up! Time passed so quickly. Before I knew it, Ella had finished her fused art project, my parents were getting really bored, and the store was closing. We had to come in the next day so I could finish, and my sister painted a cute penguin ornament!

whitman science magazine

Check out the newly published Whitman Science Magazine, a non-profit publication run by students at my high school. The magazine compiles student articles, pictures, and opinion pieces about current, topical issues in science and technology. We appreciate the funding from the student government that makes it possible to run a non-profit magazine.

In the first issue, you’ll find articles and pictures covering a variety of topics ranging from aeronautics to neuroscience. The cover picture may look like a psychedelic frog, but it's actually an MRI picture of my brain with the connections false colored based on their direction.

As a first time editor and graphic/web designer for a magazine, it was a huge task to create a new website and magazine from scratch. The importance of design and layout is often taken for granted. It's something that's only noticed when it looks bad. I'm so glad that everything is up and running now and I'm really proud of the final product.

I love exploring different areas of research and then writing about them to make science more interesting and accessible to my audience. I'm lucky to work with other students who are passionate about science. I know it's going to be a great year! Look for new issues every academic quarter.

it's all about classical me

Classical me. Classical you. Classical who? Classical Me is a chance for musicians at my high school to perform every semester in front of... their parents. Okay, I'll admit, among the crowd of parents, there are also some siblings, classmates, and the three school music teachers. But that's what I love about it. There isn't anything at stake, like there is at an audition, but it still mimics that horrible, anxious feeling you get every time you perform. Cold, clammy hands that make it impossible to play the violin, shaky knees, butterflies. It really is just wonderful. Apparently that feeling wears off as you perform more. Although, I am pretty sure my sister's cello teacher just said that to convince us to play at the next recital.

This was the second time I performed at Classical Me. I played Bach's Partita No. 3. The only rests are the very first eighth note and the very last one. So technically, there are no breaks for four whole pages of music. Not to mention that those four pages are virtually all sixteenth notes. Perhaps that's why I was so nervous.

My first Classical Me performance was in the second semester last year. I played Praeludium and Allegro, composed by Kreisler, and I was the only freshman! But, this year, many other people in my grade performed. That's probably because sophomores, juniors, and seniors can get honors credit for music class by performing at Classical Me and writing a music-related paper each semester. I wrote mine about the effects of music on the brain. I'm pretty proud of it. There was even a labelled picture of my own brain. :)

Here is a video of my performance. It has nice sound quality, since my parents recently invested in a microphone for videotaping. I played in the second half, fifth to last. While watching all the other performances, I had to continuously warm my hands up, then cool them down again. Like I was saying before, I hate cold, clammy hands. Luckily, when it was my time to perform, my hands were the perfect temperature.

music to my ears

Yesterday, I performed at the concert for the Senior Montgomery County Honors Orchestra! The senior orchestra is for grades 10-12, and the junior one is for grades 7-9. I'm in 10th grade now, so I just moved up!

For all-county, there's usually about a month of rehearsals before the concert. I love playing with the orchestra! Since the skill level is higher than that of my school orchestra, we can spend more time focusing on the musical aspects of the music, instead of the technical aspects, such as intonation and timing. It definitely makes rehearsal more interesting! Each year, the whole experience is so much fun and definitely makes me a better orchestra player.

This year, I had the honor to be the concertmaster! It was one of the best experiences to lead such a great orchestra. :)

Here is a video that my parents took of our performance:

This is the program with the approximate time that it begins in the video above:

1. Orange Jam by Jeffrey Bishop (1:10)
2. Air on the G String by J.S. Bach (3:42)
3. Symphony No. 104 "London" 1st mvmt, Adagio-Allegro by F.J. Hadyn (7:56)
4. Romanian Folk Dances by Béla Bartók (15:40)

Conducted by Mrs. Kathy Cammarata

summer of music

last week, i went to the orchestra camp at the university of maryland, called SYMC. i have loyally attended the camp for five consecutive summers now!

this was the first year that ella could do the camp, and it was also my last year. so, sadly, this was our only chance to go together. we got to have orchestra rehearsals and world drumming class together! plus, ella got me to carry her cello around...

as always, they had spirit days every day of the week. i will never be able to top the crazy hair day from my third summer at SYMC! it attracted so much staring and pointing... i have a picture of it in this post! i was only 12 years old!

after the auditions on monday, i found out that i was the concertmaster! it was an amazing way to end my time at the camp. i was a little nervous for the concert, since i had a solo in one piece, but it went really well and i was relieved!

here are some pictures of me and ella at the concert.

and here is a recording of one of the songs we played, which has my solo. it is called celtic roots by soon hee newbold.

high school music scene

last night, i performed my first concert with whitman, which also marked my first concert as a concertmistress! it was really exciting, yet nerve-racking, because i walked out to tune the orchestra and even introduced one of our pieces!

at whitman, there are two orchestras and four bands, including the jazz band.

• i'm in the concert orchestra. it is mainly for freshies, so it is teeny tiny: 5 first violins, 5 second violins, 2 violas, 3 cellos (2 of which usually come late to class or just skip it all together), and 3 basses.
  
• concert band is mainly freshman as well. for some reason, they are the only group that didn't buy the dresses or borrow the school tuxes.
  
• the symphonic band and the wind ensemble are both bands for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. the wind ensemble is the highest level though. like my mom, you may be wondering: why in the world is it called the wind ensemble when it actually includes brass instruments? well, i'm sort of wondering that too.
  
• the higher level orchestra, the symphonic orchestra, is much bigger since it includes the sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
  
• last of all is the jazz band. it has the best trumpet, trombone, and saxophone players at the school, plus a rhythm section.
  

the groups performed in that order which to be blunt... is from worst to best.

it was awkward being the first group to perform. everyone was still talking as i started walking onto the stage. that was most likely because the lights in the audience only turned off in the middle of our performance. pretty bad, right?

after the rest of the orchestra was seated, i walked out from stage left, bowed to the audience, and played my A string for the orchestra to tune! sounds minor, i know, but it was quite a rush. notice my newly tailored dress!

our selection order was as follows:

1. Hanukkah Lights................ Barry Amass
2. Dance Suite.......................... W.A. Mozart
3. Silent Night.......................... Franz Gruber

i'm guessing that ms. alvey purposefully chose both a christian and jewish piece for us to perform. smart. maybe dance suite was meant to be the secular piece.

i announced the dance suite. ms. alvey told us that she was "a firm believer in having the kids announce the pieces." she told us during class on the day of the concert that she didn't have time to write our speeches on notecards... so during the school day, i was thinking frantically about what to say: piece or selection? we hope you enjoy it or enjoy? well, i asked a couple of people their opinions, and i think my choices were pretty good.

"The next piece we'll be performing for you tonight is called Dance Suite, composed by Mozart. It has been our most challenging piece this year and is comprised of three movements: Gavotte, Menuet, and Country Dance. We hope you enjoy it."

just for the record, i didn't want to say it was our most challenging piece. ms. butler (my middle school orchestra teacher) used to say that, and i always felt like it was an excuse for bad playing. but... ms. alvey asked me to.

after my performance, i watched the rest of the concert with my family. most people had already left by the end, but i was interested in hearing the other groups. i'm glad i did, because i heard some interesting things. there was even a piece that the symphonic orchestra played called toy symphony where the violists played bird noises (a nightingale, a cuckoo and a quail) instead of their violas. you know, you had to be there.

♫

welcome to your off day

the banquet on friday marked the end of the cross country season. it seems like i got to whitman at just the right time, because the wwxc girls team rocked. the girls won first place at counties, regionals, AND states! as they say at whitman, "GO LADY VIKES!"

it took two hour practices every day except for sundays and even tendinitis in both of my ankles, but i improved so much. the first 5k i ever ran was in the indoor track at the university of maryland, where my mom works. i had been training for the cross country season and trying to run the distance. yeah... that took 37 minutes. you can see on my athletic profile how much i improved over the season. the last race i ran in was counties, and i ran it in 23:22.

i'm glad that all of that hard work paid off!

the coaches: coach hays and coach b

here are the races i ran in, just to summarize my season:

time trials (august 28)-- 17:07
2 miles- flat. grassy.

schools: whitman

i got spikes on "spike night," where people from whitman could buy shoes together for a discount. i wore them during the time trials! they look like this:
woodward relays at georgetown prep (september 7)-- 29:58
3 miles- rolling hills. grassy.

schools: whitman, sherwood, sidwell friends

i didn't want to run in this race since my ankles had been bothering me, but the coaches insisted. when i was running they felt fine, but they felt terrible afterwards. i later saw a doctor and he said it was tendinitis! i missed a bunch of practice, and five meets because of it. but, i still went to the meets to support the team.


tri-school meet (october 5)-- 26:19.17
3 miles-wooded trails. rolling hills.
(super cold, plus a lot of people got lost in the woods)

schools: whitman, wootton, walter johnson


fall classic at georgetown prep (october 16)-- 25:55
5000 meters-rolling hills. grassy.
(the hardest course EVER)

schools: 77 schools, and i don't plan on listing them all :)


montgomery county championships (october 23)--23:22
5000 meters- mostly flat. grass and bike path.
(one of my favorite courses!)

schools: 25 schools in the montgomery county area

the turn right before the finish line

the results: do you see my name? :) the numbers are the places

at the banquet, i got the "team cutie pie" paper plate award. it was bitter-sweet: bitter because it was such an amazing season (magical, as coach hays says), and sweet because i can finally go home once school ends!

the opening act for the stanley nickels

today, jahda, who worked in my mom's lab, had her graduation party and can now be called a doctor! the party was so much fun. it wasn't your average adult party with only socializing. no, there was some awesome entertainment...

jahda's husband, jonathan, is an amazing guitarist. he and his friend lue have a band called "the stanley nickels," and they played at the party! here's the best part: qian, a grad student in my mom's lab, wanted to sing "you belong with me" by taylor swift... so jonathan and i played guitar with her! as my mom likes to point out, this was my guitar debut.

my mom convinced me to post my "debut" on the trizzle, which (in my opinion) is a much better option than her original proposition to post it on facebook. oh no, that would mean that all my facebook friends (or as my mom calls them, “acquaintances that you don't hate”) would have access to it.

we had been discussing whether i should post the video (for a visual aid) or the soundtrack (for better sound quality). i was going to post both, but after more than 24 hours waiting for the soundtrack to "process," i decided to just settle for the video:

credit: qian wang- video taping and editing

credit: jack dong- awkward zooming

jahda's quotes of the night:

"come on bea, you're a teenager, you know j.biebs!"

"i'm a scientist and i'm still cool... that's okay!"

the soggy socks go into the hamper...

if there is one thing that you get from this blog post, it should be this: walt whitman cross country is intense. i started a few weeks late, like some other people, since i was in new mexico. today was my first day of running with wwxc. i don't think i've ever sweated this much ever before in my life...

even though wwxc is no cuts, most of the members on the team are amazing runners. in fact, some newbies have already quit. i guess you have to be a pretty decent runner to survive this crazy running schedule.

people often say that running gets easier, and i suppose that this can be true for anything that you practice. i definitely believe in this concept: in middle school, i couldn't even run a mile without stopping... it felt like hours, even though it was less than 10 minutes (yeah, i know, pretty sad). i trained a bit before the cross country season, and can now run 3.1 miles without stopping! i'm not saying that i'm good, because i can't run a 5k much faster than 28 minutes. i think it's better, though, to achieve the distance before improving your time.

my only question: how much easier does this get??


go vikes!

pink up the town

i recently realized that i haven't been blogging very often... is it because i have been too lazy to blog? or because there haven't been any noteworthy events in my life? it is probably a combination of both. but, no need to worry... my life is really starting to get interesting.

i really love cherry blossoms. so, luckily for me, it has been a weekend completely devoted to cherry blossoms!

saturday
on saturday, i performed at the national cherry blossom festival, in the national building museum, for the family day! this was my second year performing at the festival.

it is always really fun because of all the activities around. it is hard to get bored there (but then again, i'm pretty easily amused). me and ella's ultimate favorite thing to do was make tissue paper flowers. we must have more than 10 lying around the house! the thing is, they don't look like cherry blossom flowers. they look more like carnations. i'm completely fine with that, though, because i have always loved carnations.

so, in between the time we were making tissue paper flowers, we performed! it's funny to perform on their stage, because there are no wings. so, when you are not dancing, you are kneeling on the edge of the stage. but, that was actually really fun. in the picture below, we are all crowded together on the side... do you see me kneeling closest to the audience?

anyway, here are some more photos from the performance!

thank you to kevin pajarillaga (my fellow dancer) for the above pictures!

thank you to john park (ella's friend, sophie,'s dad) for the above picture!

also, this next picture isn't of future shock, it is of culture shock (the adult group). i just had to show you it because of its awesomeness. yeah culture shock!!

thank you to kevin pajarillaga, again, for the above picture!

sundayon sunday, we went into dc to see the cherry blossoms. it really makes total sense to see them right after the cherry blossom performance!

in this picture, i am actually wearing the shirt that ella got from the cherry blossom festival! not only am i wearing ella's shirt, i am also wearing her scarf! i mean, i couldn't wear the shirt without the scarf (or the scarf without the shirt)! :)

here is a picture of me and ella. there were 3 pictures of me and ella with the cherry blossoms... the one that i liked least, ella liked the most. the one that ella liked least, i liked the most. we had to compromise. here is the middle choice picture (for both of us).

here we are in the archway to the pinkness! a very uncomfortable pose... a little bit awkward too... but that's ok right? i think that its coolness makes up for it.

anyways, happy cherry blossom seeing!

go with the snow

i just got back from our skiing/tubing day trip (our 2nd time ever!), and went straight to my laptop to start blogging. we started our drive to whitetail, only 1 and 1/2 hours away, at 9:00 am. as always for road trips, me and ella were nice and comfy in the back seat with our pillows, blankets, and food.

totally tubular you won't believe me when i tell you that tubing is pretty terrifying, probably more than skiing. imagine this: you are sliding down a super big hill at full speed with snow crystals flailing in your face, spinning around -->randomly, an inch away from banging into a ginormous ice wall. yup, it's that freaky... or maybe i'm just a wuss.

last time, ella and mom went tubing while dad and i went skiing. this time, we all went tubing together and i got some tips from the expert tubers in the family. we went tubing for 2 hours in the morning from 11 am to 1 pm. we went down the hill 8 times.

the snow was really lumpy, probably since it was artificial snow, and the bottom of the tube was really thin. so, the first time i went down the hill, my butt was completely hurting from the rock hard snow bumps. i taught myself to lift my butt up while sliding down the hill. it helped.

we had fun playing around with different combinations going down the hill. first, we all went down solo. then ella and i tied our tubes together. we then decided that we would rather get a double tube. for the grand finale, mom and dad tied their tubes to our double tube and... voila! our foursome was sliding down the hill in no time.

with more people, it went a lot faster (because of the momentum). that basically means: four people is four times more terrifying than usual. mom, being a scientist, went down the hill to experiment different positions with speed. sit up, and you go slower; lie flat, and you go faster. makes sense. :)

most people sit in the tube, right? but some people lie belly-down on the tube. to me, that's like asking to have your head slammed into the wall of ice! dad was the first of the family to try it out. i was begging him not to kill himself, but, of course, he didn't listen and went right ahead. he held the tube by the handles, took a running start toward the hill, and just flopped himself onto it! i was watching him with wide eyes the whole way down to make sure nothing bad happened or anything... later, while i was skiing, mom and ella even tried it! but don't think that i tried it or anything; i'm not the daring type.

see bee ski this is only my second time skiing, but i really love it. i love it so much that after my first time skiing, when i was creating a new email account, i made my username "beatriz.skiing." everyone always asks me why that's my username, but i'm thinking it's sort of obvious. the last time i went skiing, i got pretty lucky. when i went to meet for a group lesson, i was the only one there! private lesson for a group lesson's cost. this time, with winter break and all, it was more crowded, so there were 9 people instead.

i don't know if you can call the class i took "intermediate." we spent the first half of class skiing in a line, jumping one by one while saying "pop," with the last person saying "corn." then we practiced turning, even though they said the intermediate class was for people who could turn.

what i enjoyed about the lesson was that for the ski lift, instead of waiting in the unbearably long line, we got to go in the special express line for only lessons and patrols. after the lesson, i had to wait in the line as i looked hopelessly and enviously at the people in the special express line. sigh.

the worst part about skiing? the level ground. well, even worse than that is an incline. you should see me lug myself across the snow. it is so lame that you would laugh. first i try pulling myself with the polls, then i try stepping, then i try gliding, then i give up. after moving about a foot, i have to stop and take a break. it's tough, i'm telling you!

once the lesson was over, i went skiing by myself. apparently, last time we were skiing, i scarred dad for life when i forced him down the intermediate slope. but, luckily, he's coming skiing with me next time!

music marathon

yesterday i went to my second all county orchestra audition (last year's audition). before the audition, i was freaking out. not because i was nervous, but because i didn't have a banana that could prevent an anxiety attack. magnesium is magical. my mom comes home and pulls out 5 bananas! sigh, i love her. she knows me so well.

longest practice period ever
i got to the auditions at 6:55 pm, since i was auditioning in the last block from 7:30-9:00. well, i auditioned at 9:44. people cheered when the numbers changed, literally every 20 minutes.

the reason it was so slow was because there was one room with an etude (2 minutes), one room with sight reading (2 minutes), and one room with 2 excerpts plus 2 scales (5 minutes). so the line for the longest one built up fast. last year was much better thought out. wonder why they changed it...

it was obvious that everyone was getting more exhausted as the night dragged on. at first, everyone was practicing frantically. as we were walking towards the practice room, my mom says, "can you spell cacophony?" which, i can't (i had to use spell check to write that). then, as the room emptied out painfully slowly, there were those long patches of silence which i hate. they make it so hard to practice without seeming like a show off. like, once, there was complete silence with no talking, no playing. and one girl just continued playing the slow piece. everyone laughed but she still continued to play. i'm not sure if she knew she was playing a solo, but i'm pretty sure she knew.

honestly, maybe it was better that they were so late. at first i was really worried since i felt so unprepared. but, after more than 2 hours of practicing, i wasn't nervous at all. was it the banana? was it the practicing? maybe a combination...

me and my mom as the night slowly ticked by:


strangely lucky auditions
mr. herman: he conducted the all-county orchestra last year and described our playing with animal analogies... some about elephants... so, i'm outside the first room (with the etude), and the girl waiting next to me looks into the room and says, "hey! that's my teacher." after i auditioned, i asked her who it was, and she told me it was mr. herman. i asked her how she knew, since the judges were behind screens only showing their feet. "the pants." i'm just glad that she told me after i auditioned.

the sightreading wasn't too bad. they only gave us 30 seconds to look at the music before playing it. i thought that was a little weird, since usually they give us as much time as we need. my mom thinks that they shortened the time because they were 44 minutes after the auditions were supposed to end. the time went by fast, so by that time, i had only looked through half of the piece. luckily i was able to wing it ok (i hope). the rhythm was pretty hard, and we had to shift to 4th position once, but other than that, it was all good. :)

when i went to the last, super long room, there was only one person in line, even though they said the line would take forever. they had the music posted outside the room showing what we would play. it turned out that for the hardest piece, brahms 2nd symphony, we only had to play the last half. half of me felt relieved but half of me was really bugged. i mean, the first half was probably my weaker half, but after all that practicing, we didn't have to play it!

me and my mom left and were like "finally!" we only got home at 10:07 pm. i was half asleep. for the all-state auditions on saturday, my mom says that we could get my number, then go get ice cream or something. :)

i wish we all could be california girls

thursday: today, i woke up at 3:45 am. this is because my mom, my sister, and me are going to san diego for my dance show! i'm missing thursday, friday, and monday of school. partly i'm happy, but i'm so stressed out. on the day i come back, i'm taking a science test, history test, spanish test, and geometry test. that's a test in each class, which i think is a new record! sigh.
today, we are staying with my cousins, allie and adam, and my aunt rosie and uncle michael in redondo beach! i'm so happy, i haven't seen them since summer.

you may think la salsa is a dance...
but, actually, it is where we went for lunch with uncle michael. there are a whole bunch of restaurants called things like "del taco" or "la salsa." creative names, i know. the fact that it's in a different language makes up for that. there was a salsa bar, and usually with salsa bars, i just get one salsa. but, above the salsas it said "mix the salsa to make your own!" it was hard to decide since i liked a bunch of them. at first, i got a chipotle sauce. that's when i realized that it said medium spicy, so to make it less spicy, i added some mild salsa. i ended up with a chipotle, avocado, and mango mix. i learned a lesson today: 3 good things added together can equal a catastrophe. after trying it, i threw it out and got them separately instead.

cold stone creamery, watch out! there's something called yogurtland... it.is.amazing! you get a huge bowl and fill it up with heavenly frozen yogurt! vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, ny cheesecake, mango, double oreo, green tea, blueberry tart, vanilla wafer.... and then you can get vanilla and chocolate combined, strawberry and ny cheesecake combined... i could go on and on, but i won't. first, of course, i had to taste almost everything in the store. but, it wasn't too embarrassing since the one worker was in the back. i just took some tasting cups and tried them one by one. after some contemplation, i finally decided on strawberry and ny cheesecake (not the combined version). that's when it got even more overwhelming since there are a whole bunch of toppings to choose from! but, with the strawberry and ny cheesecake froyo, i couldn't resist the real strawberries and real chunks of cheesecake. how awesome is that? and all for $2!

it's almost like exercise...
they have wii fit, and we were playing on that for a while. by the way, i would just like to tell you that ella's wii fit age is 28, and mine is 13! ella's age is 20 years off, mine is a few months off. pretty good right? my mom would like me to tell you that "ella didn't understand the balance activity and if she retook it, she would have done better..." cough cough. me and ella like the hula hooping game. well, more like the hula hooping movement. if you are trying to imagine what i look like hula hooping on a wii fit, let me tell you... it looks very stupid. standing in front of a tv doing circular hip movements is just not normal. but, it is surprising, hula hooping for 160 seconds can be more exhausting than you think. i was out of breath and sweating after trying to beat ella's record breaking score. i didn't beat it. i'm so out of shape.

warm enough to wade...
it's october, and we went to the beach! me and ella even went into the water. it was freezing cold! the waves were humongous, and i took the pleasure of pretending to run away from the waves screaming to make ella run in horror. she even fell for it 7 times. before we left for the beach, i decided that i wanted to carry the boogie board all the way to the beach, and in the end... i only boogie boarded once until i wiped out, and sand got everywhere. my ears, my nose, my hair. it took forever to get the sand out of my hair!

inner peace, outer screams...
after that i did wii fit for a while more. that whole time, allie and ella were behind me styling adam's hair in front of the mac camera. it's difficult doing tree poses with a whole bunch of screaming, but i did it. the wii told me to take a 10-15 minute break, which is when i run over to mom saying "it told me to take a break" then run straight back to keep going. strangely, i got 4/4 stars on the strength exercises, but i got 1/4 stars on the balancing ones. they called me a bodybuilder... hehe.

friday: great, i'm sick. i think it was either the ice cold beach water, or the wii fit overload. i can't be positive. but of course, i was just fine when it was time to drive to legoland in san diego! the ginormous lego sculptures are crazy!

stories from the land of brick...

this was in the parking lot! since this was the first lego-built thing that we saw, we were really impressed. but... we all agree that they are a tad creepy.

AHH! i was debating myself on whether or not to smile for this picture. i decided that it would look more realistic to put on my "oh my god" face.



there was this driving school ride where you can drive around and "follow the rules of the road." it probably doesn't sound that fun right? but actually, it was really fun. you get into these cute, small cars. it's better than the other driving rides in hershey park and disneyland since they aren't loud and smelly, the pedal and wheel are easy to use, and you can drive around without being guided by something on the ground. actually, i had a dilemma when i was driving around. there are stop signs, but the roads are so small that you can see whether or not there are cars coming. do you stop? or just go... i stopped anyway, just to be a good driver.

outside of the ride, there is this life size lego car! since it's legoland, you would assume that everything is made of lego. but, from far away, the car still looked real!

say cheese! this is me and ella posing for a photoshoot with a movie star (from a lego movie, that is).


there was also this boat school ride called skipper school where you can drive a boat around. my only complaint about this one is that it goes super slow. honestly, these rides would be so much more appealing if their names didn't include "school."

we also went on this completely tame dinosaur roller coaster. my mom was telling me how annoyed she was that the people behind her kept screaming into her ear during the tiny drops. i mean, they weren't even drops, more like bumps! there was another roller coaster that was called "test track." at first, me and ella weren't really into going on, but my mom convinced us to go on. you know how on roller coasters, there's that slow incline before the big drop? when we were going up, i was seriously hyperventilating. but it was so awesome. it was jerky like a real test track, and we ended up going on it 3 times (since there wasn't any line).


we went on this ride where you have to pull the rope to get up, then when you let go, you fall back down. it's not like you are pulling your whole weight, but it was still hard. falling to the bottom was a disappointment too. it was more like exercising than a ride. :(


this dragon and the big car are probably my favorite. seeing them in person is even more impressive. they use these tiny legos that are like 1cm x 1cm. do you see ella standing right next to the giganto horn? i have no idea what she was thinking. it was like she was waiting to have her ear blasted out. we left before it made any sound anyway.


this slide was amazingly fun. we went on it 2 times. the only thing was that it makes you completely staticy!


ok, this is totally random right now, but i just had to show you. when we went to the bathroom, i saw the most hilarious bathroom sign ever!


here i am, battling evil. you're welcome.

my favorite part of legoland was definitely the miniland. it was so cute, and very cool. they said that it was built with 360,000 lego bricks and it weighs 718 pounds! i took a whole bunch of pictures, but i'll just show you some.

here is washington dc. check out that bus on the bridge. the buses, cars, and boats actually move. it is pretty cool.

i thought that the "states bank" engraved into the building was cool. i like the limo, too (hehe)

this is the inauguration!! that looked like it took a lot of work, with all of the people. if you look closely, you can see obama! he is wearing a red tie, and his hand is on the bible!

it was pretty cool how there were moving carousels and buttons you could press to make noise... and this fountain was actually like a real fountain! i'm just a little disturbed... when i looked at the people up close, one guy lost his head! but, i mainly wanted to post this picture to comment on those monstrous pennies.

time square! i was born in new york, so my mom took a picture of me in front of this. but, we weren't exactly sure what the spiders on the buildings were supposed to be. i guess it's the halloween theme!

the lego store is awesome. there are boxes of legos of all different shapes and sizes. we stayed there for 30 minutes only for me to buy 93 cents worth of legos. i'm easily overwhelmed as you have seen (yogurtland, now this!) we stayed at legoland from 10 am-5 pm, which was the whole time it was open. for dinner, we went to the all holy in-and-out burger! i have been looking forward to going there since i left california last time. but i couldn't enjoy it with my sore throat. i'm sad now. now we are in the hotel, but i only have "0 days, 23 hours, 15 mins, 57 seconds" left of internet time. well, i'm not counting on spending 24 hours online between tonight and tomorrow, but i'm tired... so, talk to you later! from...


saturday: today we went to the san diego wild animal park! this was only my 2nd time going, but i love that place. the animals can run around this 12 acre span of land. it is so amazing. on the african safari, where you go on a tour around the animals, they said that they keep the baby cheetahs in the same area as the other animals... i thought that was sort of dumb, but my mom says that they probably keep them more far apart. the camera ran out of battery in the middle of the tour, but i still got some pictures.


this is one of the baby cheetahs that i was talking about before. i think he is super cute! all of the cheetahs there were babies... i don't know where the adult ones were.


here's a white rhino. the tour guide said that his head alone can weigh as much as 1 ton... wow. i weigh 3.25% of that (yes, i used a calculator). no wonder they just sit around all day.


two ostriches! i thought this was a cool picture. they're drinking water together... or they could be having a tete-a-tete. :)


giraffe! i have always liked giraffes. during the whole tour, the guide was saying that animals see brown and green as the same color, so the giraffe wasn't easy prey. but, it's so big. how could you miss it?

there was this cool new "exhilarating" zip line ride over the land with the animals. i was really excited by that... but then i figured out it was $70. yeah, that was out of the picture.
i liked the gorillas. you know, they actually do beat their chests! it was hilarious. the tiny monkeys were really cute doing the monkey bars. i had to tell ella that they were better at monkey bars than she is. i guess i just like primates. :) we left early in the afternoon so we could go to the hotel and rest before the culture shock san diego 10th anniversary choreographer's showcase. it was really cool. actually, the best part was the last half. and that's when ella fell asleep! it's weird where she falls asleep: she fell asleep in the front row of a dance show once, with bursting music (where the dancers could literally sweat on her), but she stayed awake during my munchkin appearance during a wizard of oz off broadway show.

sunday: today, my cousins allie and adam, my uncle michael, and my aunt rosie came to san diego for my dance show. but, before the show i was really busy with techs and rehearsals. i'm part of a dance company called culture shock dc, with two youth groups: future shock dc is for ages 12-17 and mini shock dc is for ages 7-11. i'm in future shock, but i used to be in mini shock. so, since mini shock needed more people to perform with them, i got to perform with both mini shock and future shock! which basically meant twice as much rehearsing. luckily, most of the mini shock rehearsals were when future shock was taking a break.

busy b...
first, i had a future shock tech on the stage. after that, while future shock watched other groups' tech rehearsals, i had the tiniest bit of time to eat a bagel. i came back to the theatre in time for more future shock rehearsal. then, when future shock left for their lunch, and mini shock came, i went with mini shock for rehearsal. after the rehearsal, we went to the stage for our tech rehearsal. during the tech, future shock came to watch our tech...... phew.

a cool park in the middle of nowhere...
then, i had one period where there wasn't anything i had to do with either mini shock or future shock, so i got to go to a mosaic park in escondido with my mom, sister, cousins, aunt, and uncle! it was so pretty. there was a cool (yet super easy) maze to the middle of the park where there were a bunch of sculptures. around the sides, there were...shiny snakes? big colorful worms? i'm not sure.









after we went to the park, i went to a future shock cast meeting before the show.

gotta wait for the dvd...
since future shock performed in act 1, they got to watch act 2. but, since mini shock performed in act 2, they got to watch act 1. which meant... i didn't get to watch any of the show! but, down the hallway from the dressing rooms, there was a room with a screen that had the show live. so, in our free time we got to watch the show.
there were bowls of candy in each dressing room, so the plus of performing with both groups was more candy! there were nerds, tootsie rolls, and lollipops in the future shock room, and there were whoppers and sugar sticks in the mini shock room. ok, i'll be honest. i stuffed some (or a lot of) candy into my backpack pockets.

the moment you've all been waiting for...
the show was so much fun! i would post a video on here, but it's prohibited, according to the directors to preserve "artistic integrity". not that they would ever see my blog or anything... anyway, the future shock theme was "futuristic." it makes sense, right? future shock? futuristic? hmm... i probably didn't have to point that out. it was sort of hard to tell what our theme was. the songs sounded pretty techno-ish, and our costumes had silver, but i guess it's pretty hard to guess. i thought this one dance was really cool, where there are different groups doing different dances to the same song, and they are coming on and off, and some are doing it at the same time. there was a contemporary part, an african part, a wacking part, a popping part, and a housing part.
the mini shock performance didn't have a theme. our costumes were lime and true blue. i could only dance in the 3 dances i knew from last year. it was awesome dancing with mini shock again. i totally miss it.

mmm... buffet...
my parents say that it's not worth it to bring me to buffets, since i don't eat that much. but i am in love with souplantation! we go there every time we come to california. as you can see, all of my favorite places to eat are in california. souplantation, in-and-out burger, yogurtland... and out of all three of those, there can't even be one in maryland! sigh. i always look forward to the unlimited soft serve and the yummy strawberry lemonade. at the souplantation in san diego, they even have warm fudge brownies to go with the soft serve... mmm.... i can almost smell it! then, we all drove back to redondo beach. i was super tired, and i fell asleep in the car.

monday: we flew back to maryland today. we had to leave for the airport at 11:20 am... yogurtland opened at 11:00 am... could we make it? of course! it's yogurtland for crying out loud! i figured out that i like pumpkin pie froyo, and i like blueberry tart froyo, but they don't taste good together. it's like la salsa all over again! anyway, ella was really excited that there were those personal tv's on the airplane. that's always her first choice of entertainment!