DC Challenge

Eric smiling at the Arboretum because he caught a frog by the leg and accidentally let him go.

Yesterday, Eric and I attempted the DC Challenge. We were all pumped up and excited to read the 12 challenge clues. Using his smart phone and knowledge of D.C., Eric was able to crack a lot of the clues quickly and offer up possible leads for other clues. We had a bunch of sites lined up and decided to go to the National Arboretum first because of this clue:

"When you visit this garden-within-a-garden, we bet you don't realize you're actually standing on the roofs of several different subterranean galleries. To complete this clue, replace "water" with "moon" in DC scandal lingo and you'll find the name of your objective. Take a photo with your team inside the two 9 foot tall, pink granite namesake objects."

So, obviously, we were looking for a moongate. Eric immediately skipped over all of the other details when he realized where he had seen a moongate near a "garden-within-a-garden" before. I had thought that since it said "standing on the roofs of several different subterranean galleries" that it was probably the bontanic garden instead of the arboretum. However, Eric insisted that it was at the arboretum because the moongate he was thinking of was by a bonsai garden within a larger garden. Okay. Eric has been living in D.C. for longer than I have and I should trust his opinion...

However we got there eventually (it was near no metro, and a very long walk which was suspicious of our inevitable failure because there was a time limit for the scavenger hunt and it was beginning to seem impossible to complete the rest of the clues if one was being asked to walk all the way over to the arboretum) and ran to the bonsai garden. It was so beautiful! Sorry for that intolerable run-on within those parenthesis back there...

Eric led me to the moongate but there was no sign of the "two 9 foot tall pink granite namesake objects (moongate)". Those would be pretty hard to miss. We searched around some more and went to the information desk in a small trailer building to ask a man for help. After some more deducing we looked at each other crazily and realized that we should have been at the Botanic Garden all the long, which would have made a lot more sense because it was much closer to the rest of the items on the scavenger hunt list. So, I was right.

Eric felt absolutely terrible about wasting a couple hours of our time and admitted to me that even though his competitive side felt defeated and embarrassed about not returning to the competition to look for other clues, his logical and nature-oriented sides felt it was probably best to enjoy the rest of the afternoon slowly looking at the flowers at the arboretum because there were eleven more clues and only a couple hours left to make it to the finish line. So, for the next hour or so, we walked through the arboretum hand in hand and took lots of photos of ourselves in front of beautiful trees and flowers instead of in front of random clues in the D.C. area.

Love,

Monica

P.S. Yes, those are blue and orange lizards. Long live the head band.

P.P.S. My fish were adopted this past week by a nice lady with some kids and a new pond. Orange and Julius have both out grown their 55 gallon tank and I no longer have the time to visit them and take care of them (they were living with my parents). Orange was about 8 inches long and Julius was about 5 inches long. Now they are the two biggest fish in their new pond called "home" and have made new friends in three little (comparatively) koi fishies. When Eric and I went to the Arboretum there was a big pond with many, many koi. A lot of them were very big and it made me sad/happy about my two koi. I've had them for almost three years and one day they will be the size of a cat. I had always thought I would keep them and one day make a pond for them. It didn't work out that way, though. I feel good for having given them a chance to live outside in a big pond and I will hopefully get to visit them as they grow bigger and happier.

Bleep Bloop

Many of you know that I never sleep. Here is one of the many things I try to fall asleep to: Average comedians playing and commenting on their playing of video games...

Oh, and just came back from seeing Arabian Nights with Eric, his Mom and Joe..

It was AMAZING! Pretty much the best thing that has happened to me since I came home to a brand new puppy at the age of 10 years.

Love,

Monica

Costume Karaoke

Tonight I went to Karaoke with Bob, Cailtin, Joe and Eric (Eric's roommate). It was AWESOME! I sang "I walk the line", "Zombie" and "I should have known better". I got off the stage and everyone was cheering and high-fiving me. It was an amaaazzzziiinng feeling. A group of people even found me well after I had finished singing to tell me that they loved me or something. It was like valentine's day or something without all the stupid candy.

November Camping photos

Here are some highlights from our November camping trip to Lake Anna, VA. All stolen property (Eric took the pictures).

Domestic Violence and Divorce

That's not what this post is about (but that IS what the homework I'm supposed to be working on is about). You may be asking yourself, "Monica, aren't you getting a degree in Art?" The answer is, yes, but none of that matters in my "Sociology of the Family" class.

And none of the aforementioned matters, either, because it's three in the morning (AGAIN, I know!) and I am procrastinating. I found these photos from May and they made me laugh. What am I even wearing (a dress and jeans at the same time)?

Bzzzzz

Spring 2010, straight from the wacky minds of Ashley and Aubrey.

Karaoke

Last Wednesday, Rachael, Christian, Eric, Eric (yes, two Erics) and I went to Solly's to partake in their karaoke extravaganza. I lost my voice singing "Single Ladies" with Eric, "Friday Night" with Rachael and "Gay Bar" with Joe and Christian dancing in the background. The only person who didn't sing was the remaining Eric. Here are some pictures, courtesy Rachael's blackberry, from the night:

Latest recording

Below is my cover of Pomplamoose's cover of Makin' Out by Mark Owen. Let me know what you think?

And I think it would be really fun for me to start taking requests. So, if there is any song that you would like to hear a band of Monicas sing acapella with a distant metronome (what else am i supposed to do with no beat-boxer at my disposal, huh?), then let me know!

Enjoy!

P.S. I am finally all better. Fever is gone. And, yes, that means there will probably be less blog entries as I can now start homework again and life and not just laze in bed all day watching trash on my computer.

Via Lisbeth

Practice makes perfect

I say the above in regards to the fact that these videos are of me practicing piano a few hours ago, and both pieces are very much in progress.  But, I've reached points in both pieces where I don't mind sharing because I'm am no longer embarrassed.  My hopes are to be playing the second half of "Misty" soon and to memorize the Bach piece as I speed it up and fine-tune it.  I also hate doing the trills and need to figure out how to play them correctly.  My fingers just don't move that quickly.  

Misty from Monica Huang on Vimeo.

What's funny is that the related videos for this piece are all videos of 8-year old asian kids playing a whole heck of a lot better than me.  Again, practice makes perfect.

Hope you enjoyed listening to these works in progress!

Easter

My cousin, Sarah, came over this weekend to spend some time with me until Easter Sunday. We watched many movies, ate lots of good food and enjoyed the beautiful weather all while getting lots of homework done. I even taught Sarah how to throw a pot on the wheel! Here are some photos from our attempts at making rainbow, hard-boiled eggs for the holiday (without any vinegar):

Sarah, finally sinking her teeth into (and wiping away) the burger she was craving...

Funny thing

During the past week I was asked by a mother to babysit her children last night.  However, I had too much homework to do so I gave the job to my roommate, Jenna, who gladly accepted.  When Jenna came back she told me how one of the kids kept thinking that she was me.  I thought this was so funny.  I work on Sundays at the nursery and watch both of these kids in the morning and Jenna said that the little girl was so confused that she thought she (Jenna) was going to be working at the nursery instead of me.

This morning, I got to see how confused the little girl was for myself.  When I saw her she gave me a great big hug and said, "I missed you".  I foolishly thought that she was referring to my absence during babysitting the night before.  However, it became clear to me that she meant "I missed you since last night" when the little girl called me Miss Jenna instead of Miss Monica.  The saddest part is that she has known me for two years and Jenna and I don't look alike at all.  I feel so replaceable and disposable.*

Love,

Monica

*By the way, this is the little girl that says she loves me and gives me hugs just to get cookies.  And she tricks me every time.

Made my day

Music, ambiguous emotions

both via Immersion blog

Plants and Civilization

My winter term class is going to be fabulously entertaining and enlightening.  The book I'm reading right now (Botany of Desire) is a fun read and I'm so excited to see what this mini-semester brings.  

For a brief moment in class my professor talked about Joyce Kilmer and his poem, Tree.  So, I looked it up (because, despite being a famous poem, yours truly had never come across it).  Here it is:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Also noteworthy, my professor gave us a brief history about himself.  One of his power point lecture slides was titled "Who am I?" and upon clicking the space bar of his laptop, a picture of him as a teen zoomed onto the screen.  It said "Rattlesnake-Killer".  From there, he became a "Bored-Banker" and is now a present and self-identified "Tree-Hugger".  Let me just say that once you see an old photograph of your teacher holding a dead rattlesnake from the estimated seventies, you can't help but warm yourself to his/her friendship and, in my context, to their knowledge on plants and civilization.

Today's class ended with our group of students walking outside into the frigid cold, led by professor, to a pine tree where we heard some rem(b)arkable history about North Carolina's state tree.

Now I'm off to acquire transportation to buy a kazoo.

Love,

Monica

Leaf Pile

The kids that I babysit every Thursday are wonderful.  They are 3, 5 and 10 and the four of us can get into a lot of trouble.  Today, they really wanted to play outside.  They are fortunate enough to live in a beautiful farm house on a lovely property with many, many trees.  This means that their yard and drive way and roof are all covered in leaves.  I casually suggested to them this evening that we build a leaf pile, thinking that it would burn off some of their energy.  The rest is history, however.  They built a great big leaf pile, one that was probably bigger than any one I ever built growing up.  For a couple of hours we took turns jumping into the pile, re-building it and burying each person under the leaves (we even buried Lulu, the pug-beagle mix, while she would sit still).  I think it is safe to say that we all had to take time to retrieve one or two leaves out of our shirts or even our pants after the fun.  

They were so cute and driven while building the pile that I wanted to take a picture of it.  Unfortunately I only had my cell phone and it was very dark at the time (if you look closely you can see the contour of the leaf pile, but it does a great job of disappearing into the leaves in the background).   

India Ink

I will never look at a container of India ink in the same way, ever again.  Now when I look at India Ink, hours and hours of tortuous, painstaking doodles will flash themselves before my eyes.  Anyway, here is the project timeline and finished product (that has a considerable likeness, if I do say so myself):

in progress...

close up

the end

Moshi Moshi

I just got back from my less than 12 hour stay in Chapel Hill with my lady friends Jean and Elisabeth (from camp).  It was such a blast!  I couldn't have asked for better company.  Here was how our time was spent:

1) When they first came to pick me up from Elon, they called my phone as I was in the middle of cleaning the fish tank.  I left the apartment immediately because I was so excited and forgot to turn off the sink (the sink sprayer was filling up a giant bowl with which I was using to refill the fish tank).  When we got back inside, the entire kitchen floor was flooded with water.  :(  After I cleaned it up, we frantically left Elon to get to Moshi Moshi for Jean's hair cut.  We were only a few minutes late.

2) After the cut, Elisabeth and I spent some time having to convince Jean that it was, indeed, a SUPER cute upgrade before entering into Med Deli for dinner.

3) Then we went to a vintage/thrift shop.  Elisabeth and I got matching sweatband sets while Jean settled for suspenders.

4) The rest of the evening was spent at Elisabeth's stylish, high-ceilinged dorm room watching the movie Boys Don't Cry as we made each other beautiful friendship bracelets.  Just as you can't buy true friendship, you can't find these one-of-a-kind hand-made friendship bracelets in the store.  They're staying on our wrists until they fall off or we die (which ever one comes first).

5) Saturday morning, after having a sleepless sleepover in the common parlor area, we brought our hot and tasty breakfasts from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen to the upstairs lounge of Chill Bubble Tea.  Jean: Mocha, Elisabeth: Avocado, Monica: Taro

6) Oh, and did I forget to mention that we got cool, retro skip-its?  Well...

Camp Royall Talent Show

Here are two goofy pieces and one less goofy piece that Jean and I did for the staff talent show a couple weeks ago (in original order):

And, yes, I realize how dreadfully obnoxious I get when I am super nervous on stage.