holiday weekend

thanksgiving was pretty laid back.

i went to my sister's and helped her decorate her tree

she always has her christmas things up by thanksgiving :)

my friend chelsey came to visit during the break!

(photo by my 2 year old niece, raine)

new friends

baby raiza

i love my family

i felt like i spent most of my break doing work,

but i still have so much to do.

how is that possible?

just two more weeks until freedom

thankful for

love

my family

rain boots

autumn

friends

opportunities

safety

muffins

david

being home

life

blessings

i hope your day is filled with love and thankfulness.

{photos from my sister's wedding in 2008}

brick by boring brick

a few days ago paramore's new video for

"brick by boring brick" premiered.

i think it/they are amazing.

can you tell i'm in love with paramore? enjoy.

until next time

dear santa cruz,

you are quite lovely. i miss going to school in you but i'm glad that we can still spend weekends together. it would be nice if your downtown was a little less scary at night, but your sushi is delicious and i can't get enough of your quaintness.

i'm headed home to be with my family for my favorite holiday, but thank you for keeping me company as i started my mounds of work. it seemed a little less daunting with you there.

until next time,

celeste

weekend

i'm currently in santa cruz, spending the long weekend with david

before i go home and have thanksgiving with my family.

in the mean time i'm enjoying santa cruz.

i went to school here last year, and it was nice being surrounded

by something so beautiful all of the time.

on saturday i went to caffe pergolesi

downtown there are quaint houses everywhere

and during autumn they look even more charming.

hopefully i'll be able to share them with you soon.

dreams

{via biffalicious}

i find that i compare myself to others

more than i would like.

it's a difficult way to live.

this photo reminds me of a ferris wheel.

for some reason i have never been on one,

but i imagine the anticipation to get to the top,

and the breathlessness of plunging back down

and i wonder if life cycles that way.

coming back down is not necessarily a bad thing,

just a way to return to where you've started

and see how far you've gone.

right now i'm trying to come to terms

with what i want, and what i hope to do with this life.

it seems like there are so many possibilities,

choosing one thing feels like settling.

i'm hoping to find the one thing i want,

where i know i'm meant to be doing

what i've waited for all this time.

i think i know what that might be.

(ps- i know the photo shows up spliced in half

but i think it's beautiful that way)

my favorite season

is autumn.

there are about a million trees on campus and

they're all so beautiful with changing colors right now.

and i love stepping on crunchy leaves.

(i haven't been able to carry my camera around much,

but here are some of the trees right outside of my building)

happy weekend!

vintage lady gaga

so different, yet still so good.

i think i'm on a video-streak right now.

favorite movie scenes

lately i've been feeling a lack of motivation, a little,

when it comes to school and today started to think about

things that i inexplicably love.

that genre of things, however, is a little too broad,

so i thought today i'd narrow it down a lot and post my

three favorite movie clips:

#3

pride and prejudice (2005)

well, my favorite scene from this movie is actually when

darcy helps elizabeth into the carriage and upon hand contact

there's an immediate connection between the two-

and as darcy walks back you get this shot of his hand that shows

he just felt something electric.

but.. i couldn't find that on youtube :(

but this ending scene is a close second for me.

especially that they agree that they are both

"perfectly and incandescently happy"

#2

breakfast at tiffany's (1961)

this movie is one of my favorites.. if not my absolute favorite ;)

after the whole movie, though, i think that the greatest scene is

when paul finds holly singing "moon river" in the fire escape.

this whole clip is so beautiful to me.

#1

beauty and the beast (1991)

although this isn't my favorite movie,

this IS my favorite moment in all of cinema.

maybe it's stemmed in my love of books and classic things

(or just plain nerdiness?)

but when beast surprises belle with the library,

and i see the shots at 1:03 and 1:05

i just swoon.

it makes me really regret not seeing this in imax.

what are your favorite movie scenes?

leonid

tonight was the leonid meteor shower peaking at 1am.

actually.. it's probably still going on right now.

i got outside around 12:45 and came back in around 1:20.

in between, i saw at least 10 meteors, three brightly lit with long tails.

david went outside at the same time in santa cruz, but went in a little earlier.

my first 2 bright meteors were while we were on the phone.

i lingered, to catch a lucky 3, and just as i was about to head inside,

my last one came.

the last time i did this was with friends a little less than 3 years ago,

for the perseids shower.

as rare as these are, they are among my favorite things to do.

paramore at the warfield

last tuesday was one of the most hectic days of the quarter,

but it was all worth it.

i went to san francisco to see paramore play at the warfield.

before the show, i went to a signing

and got my box set signed by the band.

even they told us pictures were allowed while we were waiting in line,

they told us pictures weren't okay once the signing started...

but i got this one (:

the show was amazing. they played a few of my favorites

("here we go again", "turn it off", and "i caught myself,")

overall, i pretty much love them even more

and can't wait until they're on tour again.

so amazing.

"if it's not real you can't hold it in your hand,

you can't feel it with your heart,

and i won't believe it,

but if it's true you can see it with your eyes,

oh even in the dark"

daniel

yesterday morning my nephew, daniel, came to campus and we biked all over.

i thought i'd surprised him by taking him up to hoover tower...

turns out he's terrified of heights.

went to the rodin sculpture garden in memorial court.

snuck him into the sunken diamond and maples pavilion (baseball and basketball facilities).

overall great day with the nephy-poo despite overcast skies and some drizzling.

love him.

like linus

i need somewhere to put my heart
i don't think, i don't think, it's a state of mind
i need somewhere to put my heart
they sent it here, without an instruction guide

it's been a long time coming
i'm waiting to see
why this starts working
when you're so close to me

but in the mean time
i'll keep it like it's mine
and maybe i will see
i have somewhere to put my heart

preview

last night i went to go see paramore at the warfield in san francisco. i have a lot of homework to do so i will dedicate a blog to the concert this weekend, but here's a shot from the night. pretty good considering i was in the balcony? more to come <3

weekend

this weekend i got to see some of my roommates from last year for a delicious morning brunch of breakfast burritos and apple blueberry muffins<3

got a hair cut

and went home with david.

let's go week 8.

che sarà, sarà

these past few weeks have been an adventure and a battle.

i wanted to go to florence this winter and oxford next spring so that i could take courses with both programs to help my majors (english/classics). i was accepted at oxford, so no problem there. i applied to florence then found out that i couldn't go because i "had no met the prerequisite."

last year when i was at ucsc, i took intensive italian for 2 quarters, completing my first year and thus making me eligible to study in florence. but here at stanford, the language department does not accept foreign language credit from other universities and the only way to take a class that is not beginner is through a placement test.

i took one in september and did really well on the written, but really poorly in the oral. they placed me in italian 3, but since the class conflicted with two classes necessary for my major i could not take it. i went to the 2nd year italian professor, though, and asked him if i could take his class and he said yes. since then, i figured that since i had finished one year of italian at ucsc, and was currently doing well in second year conversational italian, that suggested that i finished a year and should be able to go to florence?

nope. i emailed the italian coordinator at stanford multiple times, explaining my situation but she mostly just said no and could not help me. i spoke to people at the language center, and they said i could not go either. finally, i emailed the program director in florence and explained everything to her. she understood my situation and told me she would talk to the language center. for two weeks i got updates from her, telling me that the language department did not want me to go, and my professor told me that there was a lot of conflict within the department because of me.

after two weeks i was pretty set on giving up. i would go to oxford for two quarters instead, and it would be great. but then i got an email telling me that i needed to take the placement test again the very next day. and to make it even more daunting, it was with the italian coordinator who i had been emailing initially but did not seem to want take my situation into consideration.

i took the test, and at the end was told that someone would get back to me.

i avoided looking at my email all day and waited until i got back to the house to ask my roommate to open it for me. i got mini cupcakes ahead of time, saying that no matter the result, the cupcakes were celebration because i was going someone amazing no matter what. when she finally got back around 9, my drawmates and i all got together and i found out my placement test was successful and that i could go to florence!

through the whole process, i was told to never give up, but at some points i "accepted defeat" and figured "whatever happens, happens." luckily, what i hoped to happen, happened.

i bought my plane ticket to italy this weekend. i'm leaving for rome december 31st and coming home from berlin on july 7th. other than

florence from jan. 3 - march 19,

and oxford from april 12 - june 23rd,

most everything in between is TBA :)