Interlude

Hi! It's my last week of undergrad. I'm excited. HAPArt went really well, pictures to come soon. But for now, I've got a paper to finish so I have enough time to start/finish my final drawing project, both due tomorrow. Ahh procrastinating. Ahh school. Ahh LAST week of school. Ahh!!

Rain Makes Me Happy!

So I was sitting in my room, pondering how I should best tackle the mess that's accumulated over the past week. I decided to motivate myself by listening to one of my favorite Genius playlists. Halfway through the second song, I suddenly hear a new noise. What can this be? Somebody cleaning the courtyard? No! It's raining!! And not only is it raining, it's raining a gorgeous, grey, peaceful, calming, soothing rain. The perfect backdrop for the perfect music. I'm so happy. :)

Rain
+
All I Want - Joni Mitchell
Field Below - Regina Spektor
Both Hands - Ani DiFranco
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song - Fleet Foxes
Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright
Sweet Baby James - James Taylor
Oh! You Pretty Things - David Bowie
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Bob Dylan
Shadow Boxer - Fiona Apple
Little Green - Joni Mitchell
Little Plastic Castle - Ani DiFranco
20 Years of Snow - Regina Spektor
Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left - Andrew Bird
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
Poses - Rufus Wainwright
Meadowlarks - Fleet Foxes
Something In The Way She Moves - James Taylor
Postcards From Italy - Beirut
Gotta Have You - The Weepies
Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl - Broken Social Scene
My Old Man - Joni Mitchell
Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
Hotel Song - Regina Spektor
Heroin - The Velvet Underground
Fake Palindromes - Andrew Bird
=
Love

Traffic Lights

In less than a month I will be a college graduate.
I'm SO excited!! :D
I've always felt that college life constricts my personality, and I can't wait for the freedom to soar.

In other news, this week was busy as always, highlighted by a handful of delicious dinners. My favorite would have to be my belated celebration of Emilie at the West Restaurant and Lounge on the top floor of the Hotel Angeleno. We had a window table, and wow what a view. You can't tell at all from my picture, but we were basically sitting next to an endless expanse of various shades of light speckling darkness. It vaguely reminded me of when I was a teenager and would seek out spectacular views and sit and watch the traffic lights change. So peaceful, so serene.

The food/live music was pretty good, too. :P

I've rewritten my list of things I would like to do (short and long term goals and the like). It's an ever evolving list that I always like to have on hand so if I ever get to a point where I'm not sure what it is I want to do next, I can refer to it and go from there. Or refer to it, make some changes, and go from THERE. It's all on hold until I graduate though... which means I should stop daydreaming about the (quickly approaching!) future and get back to work on my paper/projects!

Relay for Life, Mostly

This was another eventful weekend. I went home on Friday to pick up my tent for Relay for Life, take pictures of the house (it's getting repainted at the moment), and clean up a few things. I also had dinner with my mom and the boy.

The majority of Saturday and Sunday was spent at Relay for Life, where for 24 hours I alternated walking around the track, watching over my team's campsite, and napping/trying to nap.

For those of you that don't know, Relay for Life is a 24 hour fundraising event for the American Cancer Society (ACS). Teams are supposed to have a representative walking or running the track at all times, representing the harsh reality that cancer never sleeps. There are also events within Relay, including the Survivor Lap (in which team members line up around the track and high five survivors as they do a lap) and Luminaria (in which the lights at the track are turned off to showcase illuminated white paper bags lining the track, honoring or remembering a loved one). There's also music and food, but above all else, Relay for Life is a fundraiser. Each team member is encouraged to raise at least $100 for the ACS, ultimately for cancer research. I ended the event with $415 in donations, which isn't bad.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy Relay for Life as much this year. It was my second year participating, my first as a team captain, and I was very disappointed. While all the elements were there (I'm pretty sure the student organization that runs Relay for Life at USC gets something akin to a "Relay for Life Kit" at the beginning of the year with all the instructions/information on how to put on a successful Relay...), they were executed quite poorly. Everything was disorganized, and at times it seemed as if the student organizers of Relay didn't understand that most of the people who were participating had a personal connection to cancer and took the event very seriously. Meaning, it seemed as if some of them did NOT take the event that seriously, which was pretty insulting.

For example, during Luminaria (one of my personal favorite moments of Relay, and generally extremely moving), there was a guest speaker - a survivor. Her story was touching, and it was nice to hear. But then the organizers of the event had her read off of a script that she clearly had never seen before, in the dark, with no flashlight (until halfway through - remember the lights are off at this point). Worse was that the script was WRONG. It seemed to be something out of the "Relay for Life Kit" because the speaker began to read a line about a "ribbon" connecting all the attendees (which did not exist...) before an organizer stopped her and told her to skip that part and read the next paragraph.

Um. Great. The disorganization during the Luminaria presentation was so distracting it took away almost all the meaning behind Luminaria itself.

Another example has to do with the food. If you raise $100 or more, you get a blue wristband (versus a red one) and are able to eat free food at the track throughout the entirety of the event. The thing to keep in mind here is, if you expect to have food provided for you, you're not going to bring your own food. And I didn't. So I was sorely disappointed to find out that from 12pm-6pm on Saturday, all they had for us were semi-stale bagels (with no cream cheese after around 2pm), goldfish crackers, M&Ms, and water. Absolutely NO protein of any sort, or anything with any nutritional value.

And what did the Relay for Life committee have for themselves?

Apple juice, cake, muffins, and other delightful goodies that weren't available for the people who were walking.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Anyway, it's still a great cause and while it was disappointing that it was run so poorly this year, I'm still glad to have been out there doing my part in the fight against cancer. It was a pretty exhausting 24 hours for me, but I still think it was worth it.

What wasn't fun was having to clean up on Sunday and then come back and work on two projects, both due today.

On the plus side, I finished both projects and made it to my first class (basically) on time. And then I got some new drawing supplies and had a moment to myself on campus, complete with an earl grey latte. And now I've got to run and get ready for my date with Emilie tonight - I'm taking her to this restaurant that's supposed to have an amazing view to complement their amazing food as a belated birthday gift, and it should be fun!

During the Survivor Lap.

HAPArt: Art, Music, Food and Philanthropy

Finally, I'm able to talk about this! Months ago I alluded to a project that I was working on, but never ended up talking about it. Well, this is it: HAPArt. Presented by HapaSC, it's an exhibition featuring contemporary art, live music, and food/refreshments. We've also set up another on-site bone marrow drive (like at Mixed and Matched last year) where attendees can register for the National Bone Marrow Registry on the spot, courtesy of A3M.

Until all our musicians and food vendors are confirmed, I'm not going to discuss it (although I'm EXTREMELY excited about both!!).

For now, you can learn more about the show at the Facebook Event or at the HAPArt website. If you're in the Los Angeles/Southern California area, please schedule this in your calender/try to make it out! Also, invite your friends and family! It's going to be a fantastic event, and I really hope you all are there to share it with me :)

Pink's Sucks

So I mentioned a little while ago that I'm starting to write Yelp reviews again. My most recent was for the infamous LA hot dog establishment, Pink's. I'm cross posting it on my blog just for kicks, but if you want to read it in it's original form you can do so HERE. (And from there you can find some of my other reviews). I apologize for being a wordy writer in advance. If I were to sum up my entire experience with one word, it would be "nauseating." But anyway, on to pictures and the review...

I can't believe I'm actually giving a 1 star review to Pink's, but I am. There's no way around it. The food here is utterly disgusting.

Before I begin, though, I'd like to say that it's worth going to Pink's once in your life just because it IS a Los Angeles staple. The service is good, and the ambiance isn't horrible. If you do go, get something basic like a regular chili dog with onion rings (although Weinerschnitzel has a better, cheaper chili dog). For WHY I say this, read on...

The boy and I went for dinner today because we figured, regardless of the reputably horrendous wait time, we ought to go try the LA phenomenon known as Pink's. Our assumption was that at the very least we'd have a decent meal.

Wrong. So wrong.

The wait wasn't that bad. The line was pretty long but it moved quickly and with good company it wasn't really an issue. At first glance, the hot dog creations looked pretty good. All of them had similar ingredients in different combinations: chili, mustard, onions, tomatoes, pastrami, cheese, nacho cheese, guacamole, bacon, lettuce, etc. They also have hamburgers and "specials" which included such things like a Bacon Burrito Dog (two hot dogs, chili, onions, cheese, and bacon all wrapped up in a "large flour tortilla"). I opted for the Ozzy Dog (a spicy polish sausage with guacamole, nacho cheese, cheese, grilled onions, and tomatoes), the boy got an America the Beautiful Dog (a 12" jalapeno dog with pastrami, bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes), and we shared chili cheese fries.

It was fun watching them make our hot dogs. It's such a small kitchen, and it's interesting to see how everything goes down.

When we finally got our food, it was pretty impressive. And by impressive, I mean huge. The American the Beautiful Dog was BIG, and both our dogs were piled high with toppings. The chili cheese fries were less impressive, but Pink's has a reputation for delicious chili so I figured it would taste good anyway.

Wrong again.

The chili was thick, but almost too much so and the flavor was just not there. It definitely wasn't close to being the best chili I've ever had. What made it worse was the absolutely disgusting french fries - at first I thought they were slightly orange because they were seasoned. Nope! They were orange because they were soaked in cheap (read: bad for you AND bad tasting), disgusting grease. SOAKED. After we got through about half of them, I noticed that the fry boat was filled with a layer of orange grease. Nasty!

Worse were our dogs. My first bite wasn't that bad - I actually thought something along the lines of "considering the portions, ambiance and service, I could give Pink's 4 stars on Yelp!" By my second bite, however, I brought my initial reaction down to 3 stars. And by the time I was half way through, I was at 2 stars. 30 minutes after my meal, I settled with a whopping 1 star. It was just that bad. Here's why:

THE BUN
The bun tasted like stale wonder bread, shaped like a hot dog bun, left out near a sprinkler on a humid day. It was flavorless and slightly damp, with a less than appealing texture.

THE DOG
My spicy polish dog had a little bit of spice, but the texture was pretty awful. The casing was too thick and/or overcooked, and the meat itself was dry. (If you've had Wurstkuche [or any real sausage/dog], it'll be a huge disappointment. If all you've had are Weinerschnitzel or Costco dogs [or even Ball Park or Oscar Mayer dogs that you make yourself at home], it will STILL be a disappointment).

THE TOPPINGS
The guacamole was, in the boy's words, "guacamole inspired goop," the nacho cheese was only slightly spicy but somehow completely overpowering and by the time I was half way through utterly disgusting, and the grilled onions were flavorless chopped onions that had been thrown on the grill to burn for a minute (which, by the way, was SUPER disappointing because I LOVE onions).

Needless to say, I couldn't finish my hot dog. The thought of doing so was nauseating. It was also unnecessarily messy, as in all the sticky, goopy toppings were constantly falling over my hands. (I don't mind mess for something that tastes good, but mess for something that's as nasty as my Ozzy dog is just excessive and cruel).

The boy didn't finish his either. The pastrami was just poor quality meat, and he later said the best part was the lettuce and tomatoes.

Bottom line? This was one of the worst meals of my entire life :(

More pictures for your viewing pleasure...

The line.
The dogs.
The chili cheese fries. Yucky yucky...