Cul-de-sac

Dear Chandos & family,

I miss you more than any words, even all the ones that I know, can say. I mean that in the most honest, non-dramatic way possible. I've been thinking about you a lot lately. I mean, I remember you always; but I'm really missing you these days.

For just one more day, I want to be standing next to the flag pole with you on top of the hill, watching little kids get pwned by Beau and Spam on the soccer field. Just for one more day, I want to be playing keys and thigh-slapping with you on the stage in the musty ever-shrinking barn in which sheet music dampens and sags over the edge of the stand within minutes. For just one more day, I want to be dousing Cherry Grove in pine sol, hanging streamers in the staff lounge, and mopping the shower houses (even mopping the shower houses!). For just one more night, I want to beat you up in the grandmother skit in front of a campfire, and watch Genovia speak gayly in the director skit. Just for tonight, I want to be discovering the big dipper as we slip past the "beach closed" sign and lay down on the cold, rocking dock. I want to take one more picture with Ducky. I want to go sailing with him, too. I want a creamsicle from the tuck shop, and one more handful of no name cheese puffs while sitting on the kitchen counter.

I'm back in Toronto right now, and have been trying to meet up with some of my bests. (I wish that we were all a little less busy so that we could all get together at once and go on a canoe trip and make our own fires and poop in the woods and sleep under stars or something, but I miss everyone enough that I'll make the extra effort). It has been so good to see everyone, but it only makes me miss this more.

More importantly, however, is that after catching up with some of the camp fam, I'm only more certain that we should probably all live in a cul-de-sac together once we're all married (Pepps, Peaches, & Jet (almost!), you'll have to wait for the rest of us to catch up, ha).

If you are unconvinced, scroll on down.

I'm telling ya..

A cul-de-sac.

That is all.

See you soon.

Love,
Veto

xxo

Faux Paw

Hello friends,
Take a look:

Have a listen:

Click here to listen to Faux Paw

You're welcome.

- bcl.

Laptops

My current laptop (which is my second one ever) is about to explode.

Literally.

The (OS) C:// drive is so full that my laptop has started to lock up its programs.

I guess I can't complain, really. I paid $400 for my current cherry red Dell Inspiron 14z before junior year of college, following a tragic and unexpected death of my very first laptop (RIP, 1430). I shelled out the $400, promising myself that I would be pleased if this little guy could last me through college. Which it has, if but just barely.

I guess it's time to start looking for a new laptop again.

This does not excite me.

Blogosphere, this is stressful! All I really want from a laptop is for it to be solid, thin/light, affordable, good-looking, have high-speed performance, have unlimited memory space (I shake my fist at you, 14z!) and for it to last forever.

I made a list of all the laptop brands I could think of, knowing that there were plenty that I missed, but didn't bother to look up. Then I started to cross them out. I have chosen the process of elimination as my weapon of choice.

I have crossed out two so far:

Apple (not affordable)
Dell (don't last forever)
Acer
Asus
Sony
Toshiba
Lenovo
HP
Samsung (do they make laptops?)

Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Let me know if you have any good suggestions.

I want my next laptop to elicit a celebration from me:

bcl.

Karen & Me

Karen Yiu is my friend.

I discovered her in the summer of 2011 and I liked her instantly!

We spent one year separated by a 17-hour flight. 

I frequently missed her while we were apart.

We are reunited now! 

(Bithiah walks out of mtr station, locates Karen)

B: Is that Snoopy on your shirt?

Karen: YES!

We participated in 'free tram day' two times!

We ate cha siu fan and thought of Felix. 

Then we ate dessert at Teem Yee Yee, where Karen should have gotten strawberry and I should have asked for black dots in my sago.

While we ate, we discussed many different things, all of which Lili already knew about.

The End.

- bcl. 

Reader, writer

"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was SO GOOD.

I picked up this book last summer, because my best friend has purchased a copy while shopping for books to take with her on summer vacation. It looked good to her; it looked good to me, so I bought my own copy. I have just now finally found-- or made, time to read it. I'm excited by this book, or at least the experience of reading it (enough to write a blog post about it!). It has been quite a while since I've encountered a book worthy of staying up into the wee hours of the morning for because I had to finish "just one more chapter, just one more chapter." (The last one being "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins, which was almost an entire year ago, unfortunately, and also a member of the Young Adult literary genre). 

When I was younger, I used to love reading. I read quickly, and I read a lot. But then, I stopped reading as much. Slowly, I began to lose my need and sadly enough, perhaps, my desire to devote my seemingly valuable hours to flipping through the paper pages of a book. I lost my time to the internet, to television, and to the g-mail, which has been both a faithful lifeboat and a ruthless captor of mine over the last few years in college. I lost my solitary time to hours of meet-ups, coffee house chats, school meetings, and petty part-time jobs. Too many days, I've settled into my bed late, late, late at night, crawled tiredly beneath my covers, and let my head sink into my pillow as I reflected on how sad my day was. I had found myself to be very bored, seemingly in a state of constant lethargy. Nothing excited me. I didn't even feel fully awake anymore. I just went about my business, day after day, moving to a robotic rhythm. Too many days, I went to bed feeling sick to my stomach with guilt of how I had chosen to spend the 24 hours before-- sitting in front of the TV, scrolling down the facebook home page with a lazy, unfocused finger and mind, and clicking the refresh button on my gmail, just in case. 

This novel, "The Shadow of the Wind," was a wonderful read. But rather than summarizing the actual story, which was brilliant and beautiful (you'll have to read it yourself to find out-- and I sincerely hope that you do!), I felt like I wanted to write about what the book made me think about, what it made me feel. 

I found this novel to be an absolute masterpiece, but more than that, I found it to be an ode to reading, to writing, to good tales and even better listeners; a celebration of literature and the adventures that they were once believed to contain. Above all, I was reminded today, as I closed the back cover of the novel, of how powerful a story can be. It reminded me of my own personal experience with reading-- of getting swept up into a story, clean off of my feet. It reminded me of how endless the possibilities of reading and writing must be because Zafón had managed to create for me, using nothing more than black ink and thin white paper, a world I could envision and hear, and a group of people who I felt I knew, felt I disliked, and felt I cared about. 

For those who do not enjoy reading for pleasure, I'm sure that this blog post is eye-roll-worthy, and I will not try to convince you to convert to a life of book worm-ism here! But for you, fellow readers and writers, I raise my glass to you! Because we have discovered what so many others (and an increasingly number at that) have disbelieved-- that to write something meaningful, and to read something that causes you to feel something-- anything-- is nothing short of magical. 

Don't worry, blogosphere, I am not unaware of how I sound right now. I am being all sorts of poor C-words right now, including but not limited to ones beginning with 'cheese-,' 'clich-,' & 'corn-"-- but honestly, it's all honest! I am thankful for the reminder. I had not just imagined the fantastic world I had discovered in books as a child-- I only forgot for a while. 

So, to my fellow reading and writing friends, cheers! 

And also, just to clarify, the rumours are absolutely true. I am, in fact, an English major!

- bcl.

Challenge

Detroit, here I come!

I'll see you there, ladies and gentles.

- bcl.

Here's to you and I!

This past week & graduation weekend has been too much.

Too much laughing. Too much crying. Too many hugs; too many good-byes; too many cheers.

I moved out of Ann Arbor today, and am now sitting in my room in South Lyon.

I'm in a bit of a funk right now.

But! The serious funk aside, I would just like to say:

We could just go home right now or maybe we could stick around for just one more drink. Get another bottle out, let's shoot the breeze, sit back down for just one more drink.

Here's to us, here's to love, all the times that we messed up. Here's to you, fill the glass, cause the last few days have gone too fast, so let's give 'em hell, wish everybody well. Here's to us!

Class of 2012, cheers!

For today, goodbye. For tomorrow, good luck. And forever, Go Blue!

bcl.