Watch Fashion

Yesterday I went out with my high school friends in China. I haven’t seen them for a year and I was happy to death to see them.

My best friend sent me a watch as a gift. I love it. The watch is very delicate and pretty and has a green and red watchband. The watches looks very special because the watchband is very long and it circles my wrist twice. I love the design. (see picture attached)

As cell phones become more and more popular and it tells time on its screen, watches become less popular to some degree. Thus, Designers try to make watches look more fashion such as adding watches to bracelets as a charm.
It is just amazing that a watch can look so much more fashion simply by lengthening its watchbands.

Ice on ocean- view from the plane

17-hour plane trip was tiring. My mom needed to stand up constantly to talk a walk or do some stretching. She was amazed to tell me that she could see the ice on the ocean. I didn’t believe her at first, because I had flied from U.S. to China before, and I didn’t see, or I should say, I didn’t pay attention to, ice on the ocean. So I got out of my seat and followed her to the window.

“Wow!” I said. It was the prettiest scene I’ve ever seen.

It was completely new to me. There was no cloud. I could see the floating ice on the edgeless sea. It looked like a work of art by God.

Mom said: “the ice looks like broken glasses.”

I agree. But they look so pretty, static beauty. But unlike broken glasses, they spread out on the ocean somehow demonstrate a sense of integrity.

My “Pollock-like” shirt

A few days ago, I watched the movie Pollock(2000), as required in one of my assignments of my art online course. I love that movie. The movie is in a way kind of depressing because Pollock is an alcoholic who is talented but impulsive. He struggles with alcoholism his whole life and it led to his tragic ending—car crash and death. But on the other side, his inspiration and dedication for art is respectable. He led the most modern view of art during his time period. Inventing the “drip” technique, he gained as much fame as controversy. The technique was basically pouring pigments using hardened brushes, sticks, and so on as paint applicators.

Personally, I love this technique. To me, it sounds much more difficult to draw because the paint applicator is hold in the air during the whole process of painting. Of course, Jackson Pollock had no problem with that, because he was so skillful in art and had a good control of the brush. But I’m not. I thought it would be easy to create a “Pollock-like” shirt in 10 minutes, but I was wrong.

Problems occurred. I used watercolor pigments and brushes. The thing was, the pigments wouldn’t drip continuously from the brush, but dripped in drops. So the pigments were like spots, not pretty lines, on my white shirt. I tried several times, but I failed them all. I guessed it was the problem of my brush and my paint. My brush is the kind that holds the watercolor very well and my paint wasn’t viscoce enough. Despite all, I successfully created the artwork by using three watercolors: yellow, green and white.

Street musical artists

Last Saturday, I went to metropolican museum in NY. I took the bus and then subway to get there. I hadn't been in subway in NY for almost a year, so I was really impressed when I heard differnet types of music at the stations: violin, keyboards, guitar, etc.

You may not notice that, but the music by those artistists makes the atmosphere so much better when you are completely trapped in the suffocating station, being bored and all. Sometimes the music just dramatically changes your mood. Since the performers are right in front of you, the music makes the station lively and convivial, far more than an Ipod can do.

Among all the "musicians", a young African Ameircan couple caught my eyes. They were playing "drums", which were simply middle-size rubbish cans. In collaboration, they could play songs that were composed of different rythems with only 4 sticks(two for each person). The man was talented in playing drums; the woman was good, but when she flips the sticks while playing, sometimes they fall. Whenever that happens, she laughs, picks it up and continue playing. It was quite funny though, and as audience, people don't really care if they are experts or not... entertainment is good enough.

This reminds me of a flute guy in our town, Ridgewood. I don't know him, no one knows him. He is about 60 years old and plays flute every night outside the Ridgewood theatre. Once I was having a walk with my mom late in the evening, at about 11:30, because I was feeling dizzy in my room. When we pass the theatre, the flute player was still there. There were few people passing by, and he himself seemed to be the only audiene. He kept his eyes on the road, and leaned against the rubbish can made of stone. He was claud in rags and his hair was messy. Desipte all, he was preoccupied in playing flute. The scene resembles the painting THE FLUTE PLAYER.1905, by John Sloan. In that picture, an old guy with a hat was playing flute next to a fire hydrant.

I was sympathetic to the flute guys, and those who have to go to subway everyday to make a living by playing music. In a way, I just think that music should be a kind of spiritual elevation, but not merely serves as a means of making a living. Maybe they are doing it for both reasons.
In another way... they don't have all attention form their audience. They don't even know who are their audience. People pass by, give them some quarters, and move on.

Chinese Cultural Day

Yesterday I went to Liberty State Park to play zither(a Chinese traditional instrument) on the Chinese Cultural Day. My friend and I took a train transfer lightrail and walked 20 more minutes to get there. The weather was good.

The Libersty State Park is big, u can see the Statue of Liberty from the back. And then I started to think that it's kind of unfair, that Statue of Liberty belongs to New York, not New Jersey, while the liberty park is on our side. (:

My zither teacher decided two days ago that every member of the ensemble will also play solo at the performance. The songs we're going to play individually will be those we played in the recital concert in May. I got nervous because I'm still not comfortable for my solo, but then I said to myself:"Well, it's ok. I'll just play it. Who knows me? Audience don't. lol."

The performance went pretty well. Six girls in total, we had six solos and one ensemble. I wasn't really nervous. Because the atmosphere of the Cutural Day was convivial and lively. And I felt that I was doing a meaningful thing, making efforts to spread my culture. I love zither so much that I play the notes from my heart and listens to it with all my sense organs. The special tamber generated by zither is energetic, beatiful and unique. (Here's a youtube video: zither and piano. just giving an idea of the sound of zither.http://youtube.com/watch?v=cctwUsknGhs) I can easily lose myself in the music. I did, during the performance.

The Cultral Day is for families who adopt Chinese children. Through this event, the adopted Chinese kids are able to learn about their culture. I saw many families with their adopted Chinese kids that day. My feelings were ineffable. I think I was as thankful to those American families as the kids were.

I was kind of proud that I've only learnt zither for 5 months and I'm able to perform on stage with other youth in the zither academy who have learnt zither for at least more than one year. By listening to their solos, I learnt a lot and realized that I needed too much improvement. I need to work harder (:.

pictures on the performance(right hand corner). The background painting is the image of New York City in a way sort of like Chinese traditional painting. We wore red tops and black long dress that are traditional and festive.

the circle of life

A mother bird built a nest outside my room, on the escaping ladders.

It is quite a sight.

Sometimes I kneel down and observe it;

Sometimes I glance at it when I pass by, just being curious about what the birds are doing.

Other times.. i climb out of the window to get a close look.. (when the mother bird is absent and leave the baby birds alone in the net)

I'm accustomed to glance at the net now.. but the net has been empty for a while.

It was about two weeks ago when my mom first discovered the nest outside our window. My mom and I got very excited and was expecting to see new born little birds. (I've never seen them before, except pictures in the magazines, because I couldn't get close enough to a bird's net). The bird's little eggs were blue, the kind of blue that is bright and pretty, like the color of sky or ocean. One, two, three, four.... four eggs^_^ We counted.

Several days after, baby birds came out. Awwwwwww... How cute they were. They didn't have feathers and their eyes couldn't open. When the mother bird came back to her nest with worms, baby birds opened their mouths as big as they could, voraciously wanted to have more worms. Since they couldn't see, they simply moved their heads in all directions, trying to figure out where mom was.

The most amazing thing was the scene I saw from above the nest. I was so eager to see the baby birds with their mouths open that I once climbed out the window and imitated mother bird's voice. As soon as the baby birds heard my imitation, they thought mom came back to feed them(little birds couldn't open their eyes yet) and opened their mouths. Wow... fours bird with their mouths open, in a nest, is like a pot of flowers. Their inside skin was orange/yellow/red. How pretty!!! I imitated once more in order to take some pictures while feeling bad that I tricked them. I love the pictures so much. Everytime I look at them, I say to myself:"this is nature. This is life. This is beauty. Wow...."(pictures attached above)

Birds grow so fast.... sooooooooo much faster than a human being takes.....

Within 2 or 3 weeks, they developed their feathers and soon learnt to fly. It was kind of funny to see them standing at the edge of the nest, trying to balance themselves before they leant how to fly. Mother bird and Father bird took turns to take care of their "home", but I could never tell who was who because they looked exactly the same to me!

I even feel kind of sad that the birds are never going to come back again.. maybe next spring at this time. Who knows? They left the empty nest outside my window, reminding me of nature and life at any moment.