Splinter on my lip.

This is called Michelle's super super dramatic face.

Actually its not, its just my straight face. I'm normally a dramatic person.

But anyway, this is the second clue/hint. I'm pretty proud of it, I must say.

 Last night Rachel and Christina were back in town so I spent the night at their house and we played Apples to Apples, and in the end, this is what I was.

Seems legit.

 And this is a picture of me. But don't worry, it totally has a purpose. I'm not one of those people that just takes pictures of my self and then posts them (just kidding. Sometimes I totally have a urge to do that.) But anyway, you see that liiiittle red dot on my lip? Its not actually that little. Its huge. Its A SPLINTER. or rather, the cut that resulted from me pulling out the splinter after a day. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, how HOW did I get a splinter on my lip? Heres the answer....I don't know.

Anyway, I learned a new word/phrase in Korean, Amy. I'm on the PC and it doesn't do hangul, so I'll spell it out phonetically, cause I'm cool like that.

Nar-uh-ta-ta-hay-uh. Kind of.... It means follow me.

I Remember How To Draw!

So today was pretty uneventful, except while I was sitting here at my desk listening to kpop cranked to 11 and finishing this letter I wrote to Kristin, I thought, why don't I do some drawing? And so I did. In hindsight, it would have been good to do some drawing with an actual subject that I was looking at, but as we all know on the weekends I am sometimes known to be a lazy butt and it seemed like too much trouble at the time. So I drew a guy freehand without looking at anything, took a picture, drew on it some more, and then took another picture. Here is the result.

I could have taken the pictures in better lighting, but at the time the lighting seemed fine. I think it's just my camera not being the best camera around.

I think this picture is probably not finished yet. I feel like it still needs more depth and detail to it, so if I add to it maybe I'll put up another picture. We'll see.

-Amy

Angela, that hottie

This is definitely one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Yeah, I got a camera, so the pictures will be more often. Will happen more often. Will...Yeah. I love this picture though, its awesome.

So you know how instagram is a big thing now? Like making a picture look totally awesome without really trying at all? Well, there is a setting on my camera called "toy camera effect" which is what this is.

Does this look like a toy camera to you? No. But its cool.

 Ok Amy this is my first clue/hint for this next video. Hopefully you can see the TOTALLY RAD eye makeup going on, and you can't really tell (cause I covered it with my "pull an Asian move and cover the jaw so you have a V shaped jaw (thank you Simon and Martina for teaching me why they do this)) but I have a sweet thing goin' on on my cheek.

This last picture means nothing except to say...this is what my desk has looked like for a while now, and its pretty horrible. I'm pretty disgusted with myself. I mean, like seriously, michelle, pictures of Thunder, Joon and GO but not SeungHo? WHERE DO YOUR LOYALTIES LIE?

No but seriously. This is gross. As soon as my legs and INCREDIBLY sore from doing popcorn squats (ie FAST SQUATS ALLL THE WAY DOWN TO THE GROUND), I'll clean my room.
Maybe. if I feel like it. (I'll do it when Explosion wednesday becomes a thing. HA!)

-Michelle

The Lowdown on College

...high school wasn't my best time.

The truth is that college can be super busy, it just depends on how you play it. For instance, I've passed up on countless student events/clubs/activities simply because there is nothing I love better than as few commitments as possible. That's not to say I don't have commitments. But the thing is that I'm here to get my education over with as quickly as possible and as A-plus as possible, and I don't want anything to hinder that. What I'm not here for is 1) friendship, or 2) a good time. Those things may or may not just come on the side whether you want them or not.

Last semester my free time really made me depressed because I wasn't motivated to do anything with it besides watch TV and pretend it didn't bother me that the only people I ever talked to were my roommate's friends. But all of a sudden last month I came to the realization that I can use my free time to become the person I want to be. And that it doesn't matter if I'm a lazy butt, because I'm fully aware that being a lazy butt is only fun for a few hours before it starts being a real downer.

So I started going to the gym, doing yoga at the same time as homework, writing some short stories, studying Korean in earnest, and playing piano again.

And now I'm busy.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to be doing, like going to the student dance club thing that they have every Wednesday morning, and finding someone to draw with, but I don't really have time left over, and if I made time, I'd feel like I wasn't giving enough time to the other things and stretching myself over too many things. My point is, even though you've got a lot of stuff that you want to do, like dancing and acting and Korean and all that stuff, you might have to tighten your belt and drop a hobby just so you have time to really explore the hobbies that are more important/convenient to you.

The most important thing is not taking your education for granted. Even though it sometimes sucks that school takes 12 years to get through, the fact is that without all twelve years you'd probably be at a pretty big disadvantage in the world. Sometimes school really feels like a chore but if it gets you closer to where and who you want to be in the world, then there's no reason to be resentful of it, especially since getting through high school isn't something that everyone in the world gets to do, no matter how much they want to. The longer I'm at college, the more I realize what a huge privilege it is to be here. College isn't really the utopian educational community that high school teachers make it out to be, but the fact still remains that what I learn here will likely benefit me for the rest of my life, whether it's academic or just social. High school is the same way. You can't live with it, but you sure as shoes can't live without it.

I mean, you can live without it, it's just not very easy to.

To be honest, I wish I'd taken advantage of my high school years like you are, going to dance and acting classes and stuff. I also wish I'd tried a little harder in school because, dang, I didn't really understand the purpose of school back then, and I just sort of pranced through high school with an idiot grin on my face. Sorry, Mom.

Anyway for some reason I was feeling reminiscent today so sorry if I came off preachy or whatever. I mean, you just can't deny that Spanish is going to be way more useful in life than Korean will ever be.

-Amy

P.S. I am doing a little project that involves a little bit of Japanese but it is harder than I expected. Since I'm not going to learn the alphabet or anything (I only have room for two alphabets in my mind at the moment), phonetically memorizing the phrases I need is not very easy. Man.

I'd Rather Be In College

because apparently, people in college are WAY LESS BUSY.

You wouldn't even believe how busy I am (also, I'm on Angela's computer and the language is French, so everything has a red squiggly line under it. UUUGH), and it's really starting to get to me.

And I think I'm becoming a procrastinator. I've never been a procrastinator, but it SUCKS. Why do people do this?  Its pretty miserable. Like, even when I'm doing the thing I want to do, instead of school or whatever, I'm STILL miserable, because all I can think about is how much I'll have to hurry to get it done later, and I HATE HURRYING.

There are a few things I really hate:

Doing things that are required that take about 12 years to complete. (gosh, GOSH I wonder what that is.)
Hurrying.
Procrastinating,
Flo the progressive girl,
When the internet turns off at 11,
and, last but not least,
being stressed.

Thats probably part of the reason I hate procrastination; cause I hate being stressed and I hate hurrying. But heres what I love:

Not doing things that take 12 years to complete, (yet again, its a mystery)
being with people
watching shows,
learning Korean
listening to music
dancing,
and acting.

Which, it just so happens that every single one of those things are things that not only require, but also encourage procrastination.

Its a vicious cycle.

Anyway, this whole post was my excuse for not having a hint/clue up yesterday or today, and also to tell you that this week is going to be a wee bit busy, so I might be late on my video. I'm saying two weeks tops, but just know, its worth the wait. (I'm sorry for playing it up, I hate it when people do that, because I and you know there is no way its going to be as awesome as it is in your head.)

Anyway, I haven't gotten to much Korean, but I changed up my wall a bit and now it has pretty much every word you gave me (so now it has colors, body parts, emotions, numbers (both kinds) titles, greetings and such, and items of clothing), but the only words I've been able to memorize this week are kiss (non romantic) and sorry (both ways).

I'm hoping to add some simple verbs, food names, and more conversational/respectful words and phrases (such as 'work hard' 'have a good day' 'eat a lot,' and 'nice to meet you').

Heres what I love: learning Korean. Heres what I don't love: Learning Spanish at the same time.

First World Problems: Too much education.

- michelle

THE LAST CLUE

Now I give you The 5th and Final Clue.

This one is big.

Fourth Clue

Here is the fourth, and hopefully second to last (if all goes as planned) clue to the first half of the surprise (the less cool half).

Great, right?