Drinking, Whoring, Gambling

This is probably what my mom fears my life is amounting to- after I told her I am going to Atlantic City this weekend, whose creepy website has the motto "Atlantic City: always turned on," and going to Las Vegas for New Year's. It is my roommate Nicky's 21st birthday (finally!), and this party has been in the works for a long time (her sister appears to be a Paige-like planner), so I'm psyched.

I have a short thesis draft due on Monday, but I have yet to start it and little time do it. Last night was Documentary Night. For those of you who are outside of my Bryn Mawr world, my friends and I started watching documentaries on Wednesday nights. It's more than just a casual viewing though; the person who chose the documentary prepares a speech. So far Grizzly Man has been my favorite, half amazing and half horrifying. This week was Spellbound, the Scripps National Spelling Bee documentary, a subject close to my heart. In 6th grade I won the school spelling bee, and made the qualifying top eight at district to reach the regional level. I, however, got out on the word "malodorous", which I still contend that the pronouncer pronounced wrong (MULLodorous), otherwise I could have gotten it. Still, I don't hold a grudge, as you can tell. My last chance to get into the spelling bee again was in 8th grade- I remember my friends gave me pink toe socks for good luck. It was down to the final two, and they used the alternate rules in which if the first speller (me) misspells a word, the second speller can spell the same word correctly to win (this is NOT what they use at the National Bee). I don't remember the word, but I do remember that I knew how to spell it and said the wrong letter. I think Spencer Rogers, who won that day, thought that I hated him after that, maybe because I ran off the stage crying, which was what I did every single time I lost, at least until he friended me on Facebook very recently- which is a true sign of a truce. But as you can tell, I don't sweat the small failures from years ago or begrudge people who prevented me from possibly going very far in the spelling bee.

Well I got off track- for a liveblog of Doc Night see this.

I guess I should go back to attempting this thesising.

I will leave you with a song. I hope to feature some of my musical and artistic interests in this blog, so you can glance into what bounces around in my head.


I did a report on Cui Jian for my Music of China class at HKU. He's known as the "Father of Chinese Rock," and really a remarkable guy, I recommend looking up more about him. This song translates to "Nothing to my Name," and was adapted by the student protesters at Tiananmen Square. Keep in mind this is coming out of a country where music was highly censored. Can you imagine coming out of an era, during the Cultural Revolution, where pretty much eight "approved" songs were the only ones allowed to be played? This song has some characteristically nice guitar work, as well as using traditional instruments and melodies.