lately i...

... have been trying to cook actual meals for myself, instead of residing on cereal and take out. there have only been a few casualties in these endeavors, namely an oven mitt that started on fire, and a measuring cup that is now half melted. my sweet potato recipe also needs a lot of work. the asparagus was good, though! my mom also got me an awesome spice rack filled with spices, including some spices i have never heard of. looking forward to experimenting with those...

...went to the baltimore aquarium on a school field trip, which was really fun. aquariums are always fun. except for the dc aquarium. that one sucks.

...got to visit the freer gallery with my class. we actually went down into the vault, and each person was allowed to pick one thing from their huge collection to be brought out, held, passed around, talked about, etc. that's my professor bob devers on the left, and you can see an example of their humidity-controlled chambers behind them. that's continuing ed student betty foster with her choice in front of her, and mine in the foreground. i picked a mid-18th century incense holder in the shape of a bird with really intricate feather carvings on the outside. it also has bronze-cast feet. the interior is painted with gold! it was really cool being able to intimately look at these pieces of history.

another small incense holder from japan, from the edo period. definitely a favorite of everyone's. i can't believe it made it this far through history without breaking once!

me holding my choice.

our class! and some of our choices. i look very happy and awake to be there. ;)
my friend and classmate jeff luckily took a few pictures with his actual camera, so you can properly see the feather detailing.
he also took some pictures of the vaults, so you can see how the pieces were separated by region.
another image of my class. i forget what the story behind what i'm holding in my hands is.
this was jeff's choice, a so-called egyptian "new year's flask" from 694bce. pretty amazing! see the little baboon handles?

jeff pretending to steal the said new year's flask. :)

i'm really enjoying my ceramics studio class. it's given me a newfound appreciation for ceramics, and it's been a lot easier to experiment with it this time around. here's an example of what i'm working on right now! a flock of birds inspired by the one i saw at the freer gallery:

i've been told they look like a set of molded poo, but they're still widely unfinished, so don't judge them yet!

i'm finally going back to new york this weekend, and i'm really excited to check out the whitney biennial, art fairs, and see some friends! probably will give another update soon about that!

i love cheeseburgers

tonight was a pretty good night. my good friend melissa and i were craving hamburgers so we went searching for a place that handed an amazing hamburger to her through a taxi cab window off of the 2nd ave stop on the F in manhattan. when we got there a man wearing a very flamboyant shirt was standing outside, and he said, "there's really good burgers at this place." "was this where you went?" i asked melissa. turned out it was. it's called the national underground, which is supposedly owned by gavin degraw? it was totally empty while we were there and they gave us our own roll of paper towels. they kept talking up the burgers, and we were like, you know you're leaving us with high expectations. "that's fine!" they said.

(i liked the velvety wall paper at the bar)

they ended up being right about the burgers.

it came out open faced, with a cross hatch design in ketch up and maybe mustard? or some kind of secret sauce. i got all the normal burger toppings, and it came with three (sliced) grilled american potatoes and some grilled onions. just the right amount of sides, instead of the too many fries like most burger places do. seriously, this burger was pretty phenomenal. i definitely recommend this place to anybody looking for a good burger in NY. it's not too expensive, either (and apparently only 5$ if you get there before 5?).

after that i left melissa and went to pick something up at the studios. i ended up running into my friends jordan, hannah, and brian and we went gallery hopping. we ended up going to a place called the powerhouse arena in dumbo, which doubled as a book store and gallery space. it was a pretty cool venue, seemed like it was built in an old warehouse but i could be wrong. there was a band playing but i'm not sure what they were called.

there were two photographer's work being featured. one was a person who took pictures of muslim punks, and the other one was a guy called trevor traynor who took photos of hip hop artists. it was a show called "i shoot people."

it was pretty interesting. the way traynor's stuff was installed kind of reminded me of the way shawn moriarty hung up his photography from india.

i bought this cool print from there, too. from a company called austin press.

if you can't see it it's a print of a man and a woman with the words "man's strength and women's beauty - the prefect physical form." i don't know, i just liked it and it wasn't very expensive.

we stopped by another place, too. it was a high end furniture store doubling as a gallery, and they were doing something to benefit something- i forget. and i forget the name of the place. oops! they were giving out free flavored waters though, and amaaaazing cupcakes. they were provided by a place called Bcake, apparently.

yum!!

after that we walked around chelsea trying to go to more gallery openings but it seemed like all of them closed already or were closing soon after. we walked around a little bit then went over to jordan and melissa's house, where i had some more really tasty vegan sausage. all in all i would say this was a pretty successful day, especially foodwise.